Opinion

For those of us who have already seen too many of them, the coming of another year can stir little enthusiasm. Every year I am invited to a New Year’s Eve party which turns into little more than an opportunity to watch people, old enough to behave better, drink themselves into an over-exuberance which involves...

Your scribe is happy to bid adieu to 2014. It’s been an interesting year, to say the least; but it is with ever hopeful eyes that I look forward to 2015 as the year in which we say “so long, farewell, Auf Wiedersehen, goodbye” to the calumnies and deceits of the current government. There’s an...

One of them nearly made me cry, but the majority just wanted some decent food and drink. It’s not what you think either —my church’s community luncheon was last week and yeah, I cried at that, but it isn’t what I’m talking about. I’m talking about the people who sit at a bar by themselves...

This week I was planning to expound at length on the annoyingness of Christmas. How even a spot of routine shopping becomes a full-blown battle as you fight your way down aisles crowded with dithering wrinklies buying cheap Chinese rubbish for their ungrateful grandchildren. I was going to mention how the forced joviality, the relentless...

Several years ago, in the throes of holiday hubbub and debacle, my cat attempted to climb the Christmas tree. As all of these stories go — and we all have one of these stories — the tree came crashing down, breaking almost every single ornament in the process. Left over and free of harm, however,...

A friend who read my recent mumblings about the awfulness of winter suggested my attitude might improve if I found something enjoyable to do in this dreary season. He suggested skiing. Since I used to be rather good at that, I considered it a fine opportunity to impress some of today’s youth with some old-school...