Lockdown For The Laid-Back

It is a shocking commentary on modern society that even as our jobs get more and more deskbound, and even as the internet and general over-connectivity lead to lesser locomotion, our hobbies are getting distressingly more physical.

Hard Yards

You know how it is at reunions. You and your podgy ilk descend upon the alma mater, loaded with nostalgia and determined to re-live the glory days. The inconvenient fact that a couple of decades have passed in the interim is comprehensively ignored. This is your trip back in time, and you fully expect the old school to have kept itself in some kind of temporal stasis too.

Workouts For The Practising Gentleman

Imagine my horror a couple of weeks ago when I discovered that a colleague, whom I’d thought to be a regular, peace loving, solid sort of chap, was actually one of these whadjacallems. Not only has he been found to be the possessor of a home gym and an online trainer, he deliberately performs Squid Squats, Lobster Lunges and other crustacean contortions on his balcony every morning. Why a contented corporate creature would want to subject himself to such tortures, I cannot say – but I must admit, he’s not the only one.

An Explanation - And A New Hope

I would very much like to say that a couple of days ago someone heaved a half-brick through a window of my house with a note wrapped around it that said “Why aren’t you writing more of the enlightening and entertaining blogposts that we love so much?” – but, of course, no such thing has happened, so I can’t. Literary deprivation hasn’t yet plunged to brick-chucking depths; but I am aware that eager readers are asking questions each time they see a link to an old post on my FB feed. “Where’s the new stuff?” they want to know. To them, I owe an explanation.

The World In My Windscreen: Anyone Know A Good Cellphone Story?

The World In My Windscreen: Anyone Know A Good Cellphone Story?

Augmented Realty

You must have read the mail about the new list of neologisms allegedly released by Washington Post? Those concocted words where you give an entirely more sensational meaning to an existing word by altering a single letter? Kind of like a Freudian typo.

We Are Voldemort

A few weeks ago, I was invited to the birthday party of a distant brother-in-law. His is an old aristocratic family and most of the guests would be from the erstwhile aristocracy too, so I stuck on a tie and wore black shoes. It was a cheerful party, with conversation and the juice of the barley flowing along easily without ever threatening to overflow the banks of propriety.