It's odd to reflect that for very many years, until about the age of 40, I had never actually held an umbrella. Somewhere along the lin...

I'm not sure how this works in other countries, but in Britain a sure sign that you have "arrived" is whether or not you have ...

In a recent review in the Guardian , a novel was described as "the perfect Dordogne read," a very Guardian expression and sentimen...

I went up to London yesterday with my son and my partner to see All's Well That Ends Well in Marianne Elliott's outstanding produc...

I have mentioned a number of times the special relationship I have built up over more than a decade with that idyllic chunk of rural Hampshi...

Two very different recommendations: First, there is an excellent new book and CD/DVD package from Bloodaxe of the poem Briggflatts by Basil...

Being a competitive but essentially realistic guy, I avoid competitions. Like the Lottery, they promise so much, but never deliver anything....

As well as poverty, melodrama and secrets, the pursuit of family history can turn up some more unexpected surprises. Such as, for example, ...

Although the main thrust of my photography is in colour, I do keep returning to a combination of monochrome tonality and the glimmering, cha...

We've had a mini heat wave this week, and it's been hard to work during the day, and hard to sleep at night. Avoiding the sun has t...

Let me get one thing out of the way here, first: I like cyclists, I approve of cyclists, I am a cyclist (though not as often as I'd ...

There are few things as frustrating as being quite good at something. When you're quite good at something, you're good enough t...

Warning: this post contains BAD LANGUAGE! Our swearing is a barometer of the sensibilities of our culture. Yesterday's blood-curdling oa...

I hit the "publish" button by accident on yesterday's post, and couldn't figure out how to un-publish it without deleting ...

I've mentioned before that I've been researching some family history, if that's not too grand a word for "looking stuff up ...

I've been preparing for and then, today, running a major software upgrade on our test server, so there's not been much time for refl...

Although I'm not really a kit freak, nobody interested in photography can help but be aware that there's a buzz around Olympus at th...

Longer-serving readers of this blog may recall the post I wrote back in December 2008 about Leonard Cohen's song "Hallelujah" ...

This week my local trade union held its AGM, but I didn't attend. Partly because I forgot, and partly because it was a nice day and I c...

"Blue and green should never be seen" -- traditional advice on colour combinations to avoid that seems to ignore the fact that the...