My old mate Jim McLaren invited me to the Christmas show for pensioners, even though I’m the same age as him and I’m not doddery, yet, although I can’t remember the last time I was at Panto and I hate Christmas. And I especially detest people who put their Christmas decorations up after Halloween and then wait until near Easter to put wee bunnies and eggs wrapped in red ribbons up on their walls. And you know what I think of people who buy...

Episode One: For King and Country https://www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/episode/b0brjshr/wwi-the-last-tommies-series-1-1-for-king-and-country This is the kind of documentary series that the BBC does so well using archive footage and interviewing those that remember The Great War. We are shown a Zeppelin, which could travel at eighty miles per hour and carry two tons of explosive and told about the raid on Hull. An eyewitness remembered how shocking it...

Mrs. Treaclechops is still down in Hampshire spending time with her sister who is unwell, so granddaughter Ellie decided that she was coming for a sleepover and to keep me company. She’s 9 years old (10 next month) … going on 17. She came for one night with a small suitcase containing her jim jams, dressing gown, a change of clothes, a tablet, a cushion and a pillow. Also, one carrier bag full of books and a second carrier bag containing her...

Music and reading and writing is my life. Some weeks I will find a lost song and get close to it again. British pop music of the 70s & 80s is so poetical and full of hidden philosophy. A younger generation can learn so much from this period of art. We are an island of poets and im sure we know it. This week a certain song has been inspiring me into better health. In the comments section of the song I wrote " a ballad for humanity ". Spandua...

Story of the Week is Rosalie Kempthorne's 'Choices, Past and Present'. Beautifully written, and tapping into the 'what if' that we all feel at one time or another. It's one of her Golwerra stories - see more of them on here, on find the ebook on Amazon! https://www.abctales.com/story/rosaliekempthorne/choices-past-and-present Poem of the Week is Ralph's 'Last Rites', a downbeat and darkly humorous epitaph for a relationship. You can hear these...

Its been too long since I’ve taken to my keyboard to let loose my thoughts...but thoughts are like that sometimes...they just refuse to be captured…written…studied...or even understood in quick simple musings. Probably due to the fact, I've been living my days in record speed...long hours at work…and longer hours at mundane household tasks… but my imagination has not rested during these quick silver days…it has just been quietly gathering...

I had a theory that HHhH stood for Hitler, Himmler, Heydrich, but I wasn’t sure who or what the other H stood for. I wasn’t sure why three of the H were capitalised and one wasn’t. I was wrong in the right way. Hitler, Fuhrer, number one in the Reich, Himmler perhaps with the largest powerbase and his number two, but it was Herr Reinhard Heydrich who was ‘killer bureaucrat’ and gloried in being known as ‘the most dangerous man in the Reich’ who...

Panorama, BBC 1, BBCiPlayer, editor Rachel Jupp. https://www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/episode/b0bb6yw0/panorama-syrias-chemical-war https://www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/episode/b0bnfn0d/a-dangerous-dynasty-house-of-assad-series-1-episode-1 https://www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/episode/b0bp1b9v/a-dangerous-dynasty-house-of-assad-series-1-episode-2 https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b0bpyvvh Civil War in Syria has lasted seven years, around 13 million of its citizens...

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KxjJZSgY_mA https://www.channel4.com/programmes/child-of-mine/on-demand/65727-001 One in 200 hundred births end in stillbirth. This documentary follows three couples through the ordeal and deals sensitively with the issues of loss and pain. In one London borough the Registrar dealt with six babies that were born dead that week. Spoiler: It will make you cry. My mum lost her first-born child, Michael, and she might...

Goldstone BBC 4, BBCiPlayer, written and directed by Ivan Sen. https://www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/episode/b08x19x1/goldstone?suggid=b08x19x1 Mystery Road, BBC 4, BBCiPlayer, written by Michaeley O'Brien and directed by Rachel Perkins. https://www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/episode/b0bl5l7q/mystery-road-series-1-1-gone If there’s a drama series on BBC 4, usually, I’m watching it. After the medieval Spanish drama, The Plague , I watched Mystery Road . No...