Jacqui Smith is in trouble again. It appears that she mistakenly claimed for a TV pacakge at her home instead of just her broadband connection. It further appears that her husband watched two — yes, two — porn films which were billed as part of the TV package. The Sunday Express reported that two films, [...]

Some of the more observant of you who actually visit this site (as opposed to say, those of you reading via a feed reader) may have noticed that I have changed the look of the site. That’s not to dismiss Mike Cherim’s Seabeast theme in any way, shape or form. It’s a lovely theme and [...]

A few weeks ago, I took a photograph of something in Newcastle. A market stall was advertising something for sale which I thought seemed a little unusual. For only £2, you could apparently get ‘smelly balls’. I’m not entirely sure whether the stall owner was requiring you to bring your own balls along first, before [...]

Rachel’s Food For Living is another book I was given a review copy of, in exchange for, well, a review. I was intrigued by this, as I’d never attempted to review a cookery book before. I wasn’t entirely sure how you’d go about it — there’s no main “character”, there isn’t a “plot” as such, [...]

Even when your child is barely five, in his very first year of schooling, parents evening is still a big thing. You want to make sure your child is settling in well at school, that he or she is making friends, is learning effectively, is not being a disruptive influence and generally is getting what [...]

I don’t tend to do ‘notes’ on Facebook, on the basis that it’s hard enough to find something to post about here every day and spending the time doing that, without ending up doing the same on Facebook as well. However, I was tagged in a Facebook meme and so feel kinda obliged to give [...]

Last year, I bought a book called The Last Fighting Tommy: The Life of Harry Patch, the Only Surviving Veteran of the Trenches, and promptly placed it in my TBR pile. For one reason or another, it didn’t make its way across to being actively read until this week. And that’s a shame. Harry Patch [...]

Not exactly all in the best possible taste but dead.atyourage.com will allow you to figure out who exactly you’ve managed to live longer than so far, and will provide you with your next target person… For example, people who I have lived less than a year longer than include John Belushi and Eva Braun. Whereas [...]

A few weeks ago, the Scottish Sunday Express had a front page leader about the ‘Anniversary Shame Of Dunblane Survivors’, where they castigated those kids — now 18 and no longer under legal protection — for talking about getting drunk, making idiots of themselves, and generally behaving like normal 18 year olds. You might remember [...]

Spam comments used to be entertaining to read. You’d get some half-developed story — see Spam Stories for the sort of thing — with either a few random links thrown in through the article, or maybe just even in the commenter’s URL. However, as spam filters changed and we started to see less of these [...]