My friend Toddy likes trains. There, I’ve said it. As if that’s not weird enough, he also plays keyboard in my band (or “our” band, as the others like to call it). How either of these things came to pass is a mystery to me. I just turned around one day and there he was, thumping out great trumpet sounds with a look of intense concentration on his face. And then he got his keyboard out. Fnarr fnarr. (more…)

I was brushing my teeth the other day when I noticed two hairs, each about an inch long, growing out of my helix.

Your what? (more…)

Just as a faked photo can undermine the validity of a cause, misuse of words can do the same. I give you – for the first time ever – unprecedented. (more…)

Every week when I begin this process I think it’s about time I made ‘word’ the word of the week. This week, as you can see, I came very close but ultimately succumbed to a Ronnie Barkeresque exchange of words for worms. (more…)

I had a dream this week about seeing Gollum in the crowd at Wimbledon, watching tennis, and every time he turned his head to follow the ball his personality changed. (more…)

For fans of Catcher in the Rye (none of whom I’ve ever met, perhaps because they tend to end up in prison), I should explain that I’ve gone with the World War II spelling of phoney, rather than the more popular e-less version favoured by JD Salinger’s antihero Holden Caulfield. And here’s why. (more…)

Where is everybody?

Ah, OK, it’s been a while but I thought there might be one or two of you left when I got back. You can only wait so long, I guess, especially when you have no idea when or if the thing you’re waiting for is actually going to happen. (more…)

Bit of a cock-up on the football front. Having witnessed the swiftest and most pathetic volte-face since my cat mistook a badger for a pigeon, I’m now feeling unusually well disposed towards the owners of European football’s richest clubs. They are the gift that keeps on giving. (more…)

I learnt today that a pitchfork isn’t called a pitchfork because you use it to pitch hay onto a hay cart, it’s called a pitchfork because it’s pointy and you poke it into the hay. That’s what pitch meant originally. This might not have a great bearing on the hi-tech digital world you live in but I thought I’d mention it because the cricket season is just around the corner.

(more…)

If you’ve ever tried your hand at fine cabinet making, you’ll be familiar with the router. It’s a clever electrical tool for cutting very uniform, patterned, grooves in wood. I mention this because my friend Nick recently took delivery of one by mistake – you could say it had been misrouted – and, being a drummer, he immediately set about demolishing his shed.
(more…)