January Sales

12 Blogs of Christmas: #8 On Tuesday, after the Bank Holiday weekend is over, many of us will trudge back to our offices and psych ourselves up for another stint of that thing called ‘work’, secretly thankful that we still have a job and will (hopefully) be able to pay for the near-inevitable overspending of [...]

The Skeptics Guide To Christmas

12 Blogs of Christmas: #3 An interesting question that I often ask myself and have never really had a satisfactory answer for is… how should skeptics go about celebrating Christmas? There is a relatively recent theatre show that runs every festive season called “Nine Lessons and Carols for Godless People” run by Robin Ince that [...]

Season’s Greetings

It’s been a funny old year; turning forty and all. But I just wanted to take the opportunity wish each and every one of you readers… whether you avidly click here every day, or just read the first few lines on the Facebook status update, or follow the occasional link on Twitter, or even whether [...]

On The First Day Of Christmas

The twelve days of Christmas, I believe, are the twelve days that run from Boxing Day to the 6th January. I’m not sure quite where the gift giving that is reflected in the song of the same name originates and I’ve never really heard of anybody who would go through the trouble of working out [...]

Tim Minchin Rocks Brighton

“I really like Christmas, It’s sentimental, I know, but I just really like it. I am hardly religious, I’d rather break bread with Dawkins than Desmond Tutu to be honest, And yes, I have all of the usual objections To consumerism, to the commercialisation of an ancient religion, To the westernisation of a dead Palestinian [...]

Cricket, Christmas & Computers

The News in Haiku #23…. “Snow is falling. All Around me. Children playing, One month till Christmas” So, after months of getting more and more excited about the Ashes and weeks of believing the hype that the English were going in as favourites, it took precisely three deliveries before Strauss slapped a ball straight down [...]

Shopping At Hollister

The News in Haiku #19…. “Christmas is coming, The shopping’s getting busy. Where’s the recession?” We did our Christmas shopping yesterday… well, a large chunk of it at least. Every year in late November we make our pilgrimage up to the shopping Mecca that is Bluewater. People are starting to tell us that Westfield is [...]

The Long Slow Waltz Of Decay

“Well the long fast dance of progress, And the long slow waltz of decay, Made such a natural born couple, They settled down right here in the USA” The Cross, “Cowboys and Indians”, 1988 I was wandering and wondering through the town centre yesterday and I began to work out in my head all the [...]

Blogging Obligations

“The time has come,” the walrus said “to talk of many things” Lewis Carroll, Alice in Wonderland Actually, there is no time to talk about anything. I am currently in an all day meeting at work, that will be immediately followed by our department Christmas meal (and, yes, I know it’s March. Don’t ask!). So, [...]

The Best TV of the Decade

“Take a look at the lawman beating up the wrong guy, Oh Man! Wonder if he’ll ever know he’s in the best selling show Is there life on Mars?” David Bowie, Life on Mars, 1971 Yesterday was one of those inbetween days that rest betwixt Christmas and New Year when you really have no idea [...]