philwhiteland's blog

I’ve been thinking about Cyril quite a bit over the past few days. I should, at this point, make clear that I do not usually spend my days thinking about Cyril. In fact, it must be quite a while since he last crossed my mind. What brought him to the fore this time was that I have been mowing the lawn. This is the sum total of my efforts in the garden, apart from occasionally hacking some innocent tree to within an inch of its life. This is not...

I’ve just come back from Benidorm. There, I’ve told the world and I don’t care who knows it! Benidorm has a particular place in the national psyche, it tends to be a useful shorthand for everything that it wrong about package holidays and, especially, the British holidaymaker. It occupies the same place that Torremolinos used to hold in the 1960s. I don’t suppose the T.V. series of the same name has done much to change its image, either,...

Every year, since we've been able to do so, my wife and I have bought Senior Citizen Railcards with the intention of "seeing a bit more of this country, this year", and, every year, just like clockwork, we realise that we're coming to the end of the Railcard's natural life and that we haven't done anything with it. Panic sets in and we hunt about for possible locations for a day out, which will go some way toward justifying the expense of the...

If you've got children of a certain age around the house, then you'll know about Bing! If not, his work may have passed you by, particularly if you don't happen to be an avid fan of CBeebies. Bing! (and he always comes with his own exclamation mark) is a charming black rabbit dressed in a colourful set of dungarees (which people my age would have called a romper suit in the dark ages). He has a series of adventures with his friends Sula (an...

As the nights draw in and we reach the end of October, we will once again be able to enjoy that newly-imported pastime of ‘trick or treat’ which, at any other time of the year, would be more accurately termed ‘demanding money with menaces’. I know this instantly brands me as an old curmudgeon, desperately out of touch with the times, but I think it’s a shame that we seem to have embraced the U.S. version of Hallowe’en, with its practical jokes,...

I’ve written quite a lot, just lately, about my doomed attempts to buy a steak pie from a local café (see here , here and here ). The continued absence of this comestible, despite it featuring prominently on the Specials Board, seems to me to be redolent of a societal longing for something that used to exist, but no longer does. Alternatively, it could just mean that they can’t be *rsed to change the Specials Board. Anyway, it seems to me that...

If you have been following my Steak Pie saga (which can be found here and here ) it may have occurred to you, as it has just to me, 'What the dickens was the waitress doing in the kitchen all that time after we ordered our mythical steak pies?' In the absence of any facts, I've done what anyone else would do in the circumstances, and made something up: Waitress: "Oh my God, Oh my God, you've got to help me!" Chef: "Calm down, whatever's the...

Some of you may recall my failure to purchase a steak pie from a local cafe a while back? I'm quite prepared to believe that this event hasn't exactly burned itself deep into your memory but I'm hoping there's a small chance of a sliver of recognition? For those for whom this earth-shattering event did not register, you can find the gory details (which include a spot of drain-unblocking) here . If you can't be bothered to check out the whole...

A couple of weeks ago, I went on my annual Walking Weekend with "the Lads". I've mentioned before that this epithet is becoming more and more of a misnomer with every passing year. After all, I'm 62 and I'm the youngest! Anyway, I was to be dropped off to join the other three but before that, we had to take our six-year-old grandson, Flynn, to school. I drove there and Hilary and Flynn got out of the car, with Hilary reminding Flynn to say...

I probably shouldn't say this, but there are things about Easter that irritate me. I think it's a subject that warrants a little discussion, so bear with me. Just as an aside, that phrase 'bear with me' always makes me think of The Perishers in the Daily Mirror from years ago, where one of the characters had a bear called Gladly. It was called this because it had cross-eyes, from the hymn, 'Gladly , my cross I'd bear'. Seemed an appropriate...