Yorkshire Pudding
"O God, I could be bounded in a nut shell and count myself a king of infinite space, were it not that I have bad dreams." - Hamlet Act II scene ii
6 March 2025
Granddaughters
5 March 2025
Quiztime
It's "Quiztime" once again and we are back to what you know about cartoons. As usual, the answers will be supplied in the comments section. Good luck!
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8) The first feature length animated film was "Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs" (1937). This was one of the dwarfs but can you name him?
4 March 2025
Keir
Sir Keir married Victoria Alexander in 2007 and they have two teenage children who have been effectively kept away from the often crazed glare of modern publicity.
The Labour Party were voted back into power last summer. In the three years before that election, Sir Keir had done a great job of remodelling the party - rooting out the excesses of left wing extremism to make the party electable once again.
Once a very successful lawyer, he became our country's Director of Public Prosecutions in 2008. In that role, he had many thorny legal cases to handle - including dealing with terrorists from Northern Ireland and elsewhere. In this job, he proved himself to be a great team leader and a dedicated public servant.
Until quite recently, Keir loved playing football and he has always been a keen Arsenal supporter. His love affair with football goes back to his boyhood whereas most Conservative politicians are only pretend supporters - perhaps thinking incorrectly that this might endear them to the general public.
Football is of course a team game in which every club pulls together - including coaching staff, groundsmen, cleaners and last but not least - the players. Keir recognises that in the way that he does politics. It's not all about him. He can only be a good leader with a good team to lead.
Historically, Labour is really the only political party that has ever consciously tried to improve the lot of ordinary men and women. Whereas Labour is proud of its strong links with trade unions, the ruling class - spearheaded by The Conservative Party - frequently try to use this connection as a weapon to beat Labour with.
Little more than six months have passed since Labour came back into power. Of course from the outset, Conservative-leaning media channels have sought to denigrate Labour's best efforts to get a grip on the nation's economic well-being and future prospects. It has not helped that they have had to address the damage caused by the Conservative-led "Brexit" from The European Union.
Last Thursday, Sir Keir Starmer had the exceedingly difficult task of meeting the new American president without vomiting. On the agenda was the Ukraine war and trading relations between our countries. It is widely agreed that Sir Keir walked that difficult tightrope with diplomatic aplomb. However, the following day he had to watch the Ukraine crisis deepen with the metaphorical mugging of President Zelenskyy in the Oval Office.
Keir Starmer is a good man, leading this country through troubling times. Unlike the cartoon character known as Boris Johnson, Keir does his homework and seeks to lead us forward with dignity and professionalism. There will be more ruts in the road ahead and more mud-slinging from right wingers and their newspapers but I believe he has the character, resilience and outlook necessary to deal effectively with future political challenges while always keeping an eye on the well-being of ordinary citizens - the very reason he entered politics in the first place.
3 March 2025
Awards
Over the weekend, you had The Brit Awards at the O2 Arena in London and The Oscars at The Dolby Theatre in Los Angeles. In case you were not aware of this, The Brit Awards are concerned with popular music. In a previous post, I wrote about Kendrick Lamar's "best song" award at this year's Grammys. The "best song" at The Brit Awards went to Charli XCX for "Guess" - featuring Billie Eilish.
Here are the opening lyrics of "Guess":-
2 March 2025
Sunshine
1 March 2025
Onomamania
The term onomamania describes an obsession with names. Though I swear I do not need a straitjacket, I have always been a bit crazy about names.
When I was a boy of nine or ten, I invented a game that I could play on my own involving dice and made-up football teams. With the help of a road atlas, I picked the team names - usually with my eyes closed. Each team in the league required eleven players and to name them required a telephone directory.
Again - with my eyes closed - I would hit upon a random page and use my index finger to find each player's name. Hence "Hunstanton Town" might be represented by:-
Reed (goalkeeper), Barlow, Riley, Wilcox, Moon, Godfrey, Brague, Edwards, Gray, Slatten and Taylor (captain).
The game against "Cleckheaton Rovers" would be played with the aid of the dice and all scores would be recorded in my notebook. Maybe Dunham would score the winner for Cleckheaton. A lot of my pleasure was derived from the initial naming processes.
Moving on, as a teenager, I spent far too long dreaming up names for imaginary pop or rock groups - Miles of Smiles, The Reserves, Red River Panic, Crisis, Suburban Heroes. More recently I came up with Flying Debris which echoes back to those name dreaming days.
When a baby is born, I like to know his or her name and then I will roll it over in my mind and decide whether or not I like it. Will it be suitable? Two years ago, over in Ireland, my nephew Kevin fathered a boy called Finn and that name certainly passed my approval test. So did the names Phoebe, Zachary and Margot - though Margot could have easily been a Poppy. Poppy is a girl's name that irks me even though I think it is fine for dogs, cats and even white mice .
Many first names have sudden bursts of popularity and then slip out of fashion. I witnessed this a lot as a secondary school teacher. Take those two nice men yesterday - Dean and Ashley. Those forenames date them for nowadays hardly anybody names their sons Dean or Ashley. Today's top names for boys in Great Britain are Noah, Oliver, George and Leo with Muhammad coming at the top of the list.
Top girls' names are Amelia, Isla, Lily and Freya with Olivia coming at the top. My mother was called Doreen and my grandmothers were named Phyllis and Margaret. Almost nobody picks such names any more.
Maybe I need expert help or counselling to suppress my onomamania but I guess that there are worse obsessions I could have - like meticulous housekeeping or fashion consciousness for example.
28 February 2025
Tibshelf
There was only one other person there - a lone man leaning over his car door and looking at a floral display that spelled out the word, "Sister". He raised his hand to me in greeting and said "Hello". He was probably my age or a little older.
"I'm not sure I can," he replied with a slightly ominous grimace.
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