The Plashing Vole

So. Harold Pinter's …………… Dead. He's ………… had his cornflakes .………… at last. It's all Blair's fucking fault. (E. J. Thribb, 1...

Yes, someone else has used the phrase "map twats". Admittedly, in a string of code designed to fiddle with speech bubbles, but sti...

A young friend of mine, whom the Daily Telegraph  described as a 'teenage guitar wunderkind', attended his first seminar at universi...

Cynical Ben  recommended the Bovril website. He was right, it's wonderful. You do need sound though. Oh, and while we're here, I ...

For my 'Carry on Jeeves' teatowel - brilliant.

Almost all of us managed to go for a walk near Littleborough (above Watergrove) this Sunday - all except Daniel, who had conjugal duties. Ne...

My university canteen was playing 'Another Brick in the Wall' over the tannoy today. Somebody has a well-developed sense of irony… I...

A few weeks ago I visited London to see my old chum Adam (who as a financial software creator, essentially caused the credit crunch), but wh...

The Daily Star  featured Gary Glitter on its front page the other day - something like PAEDO HORROR GLITTER TAKES BUS (really - apparently c...

In a break from the L. M. Montgomery marathon, I read Terry Pratchett's Nation  yesterday. People can be snobby about Pratchett, but wh...

I also went to the Byzantium exhibition at the Royal Academy of Art - totally recommended. Despite it's reputation for inbreeding, plott...

I've been gone so long that I've missed several rants on Cynical Ben's blog , but I've been having lots of fun. I went to se...

I wandered past a nasty pub today. It annoyed me, as it always does, because it's called 'The Moon Under the Water', which is th...

My friends Ben and Dan  are twitchers - birdwatchers. I like birds, and generally admire whatever they've spotted when we're out wa...

A while back I read some sour comment in the Guardian by a vicar, of all people, whinging about children all being violent delinquents and i...

A couple of years ago, I joined my first social network, Librarything , which links readers and allows them to browse each others' libra...

For the ultimate news junky, go here : it's a stunning site which presumably draws on RSS feeds to track the biggest stories across the ...

This is where I want to move to - though Norway and the Faroe Islands appeal too...

My continental housemates and neighbours asked me to cook a traditional British Christmas dinner for them yesterday. Although we started wit...

For lefty types like me, it's a special day. Firstly, Oliver Postgate died today - grandson of George Lansbury the Labour Party Leader...