I AM very upset with the judges of the Turner Prize. They had the opportunity to give the £25,000 to the artist whose opus was a cherry stone, a dirty cotton-wool ball and other bits of debris in a display...
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CHRISTMAS these days is a tug of love, not so much between the in-laws and the blood relatives as between two warring camps: the family, and those who know how to have fun, ie your friends. At this time of...
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WHAT'S WRONG with shoes?" Imelda Marcos once said. "I collected them because it was like a symbol of thanksgiving and love." Back in the days when most women had no more than a half-dozen pairs, the world was shocked when...
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OUR FAMILY lives in Scotland but shops, when we need a biggish supermarket, in England. Somehow it doesn't quite count as Border reiving in the old style. These days, for better or ill, there is precious little argument over the...
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IF you were to sketch a picture of a futuristic utopian community, it would probably incorporate some serious, state-of-the-art family planning. No-one would have babies unintentionally, and everyone who wanted children would conceive at precisely the right time for themselves...
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AROUND 18 months ago, following a minor car accident and what I felt to be a dismissive appointment with my doctor who told me to take more painkillers and get off my crutches, I was diagnosed with a strain, or...
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A report last week showed that teachers in Scotland’s mainstream schools are still identifying some children with autism as being indisciplined. The research by Her Majesty’s Inspectorate of Education went on to suggest that too many autistic children were under-achieving...
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GOOD news for frequent flyers. The ban on taking liquids on board flights at UK airports is to be relaxed. From tomorrow, passengers will be able to carry bottles of toiletries as long as they are contained in a clear,...
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TWO big issues highlighted in recent days were global warming and depletion of the world’s fish stocks. Fortunately, I was able to study both problems first-hand in Lisbon. One of the bigger carbon footprints last week was left by the...
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When I was a kid, not much happened at Hallowe’en. You were lucky if someone chucked a wrinkled Cox’s Orange Pippin into a bucket for dunking, or helped you to fashion a pointy witch’s hat from a black paper cone....
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By Julian Baggini, Philosopher
SOMETHING odd is happening. Not so long ago, it was received wisdom that we had become a selfish society, obsessed with getting as rich as we could and to hell with everyone else. Now helping others is hip and people...
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What with the on-going aversion to iPods, not yet having succumbed to botox, boob-job or membership of an exclusive celeb-riddled spa on the outskirts of the Maldives specialising in Indian ayurvedic massage therapy, sometimes you get to feeling ‘not very...
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IT is becoming a minor obsessive-compulsive disorder. The first thing I look at when opening my inbox are the thrice-daily digests from my friends at www.freecycle.org. There are plenty of offers of TVs, DVDs, beds, and other nominally useful items,...
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“When I am an old woman, I shall wear purple, with a red hat that doesn’t go, and doesn’t suit me.” When I wasn’t remotely old, and didn’t know what ‘perimenopause’ meant – let alone notice it cropping up in...
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IT’S hard, even in these supposedly post-feminist times, to wear a thunking big rock gifted by a man without looking like he’s wearing you. Diamonds have always been a man’s best friend. That’s the underlying message in a telling quote...
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Blokes: you’re all nuts. First, Steve Irwin, killed not by a slavering 20-foot crocodile, but the ocean’s equivalent of a colossal floppy pancake. Then Richard Hammond, mercifully not killed in his jet-propelled car pretending to be a rocket on a...
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SO these are my last ramblings on these pages. Over the past 18 months I’ve very selfishly got a lot of things off my chest. And today is no exception. Last weekend, I sat through what was possibly the most...
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YOU should always support your other half, but what on Earth is going on with those Ryder Cup Wives? Is it just me or are they giving you the creeps too? Every time I see a photo of them –...
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The other day, instead of the usual ‘funnies’ which come careering through the in-box from work-shy, desk-bound chums (jokes about Glaswegians, ‘Understanding The Female Species’, leaked memo to hospital porters who found a severed foot in a bread-bin, etc), an...
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Jamie Oliver is right. Of course he’s right. No one wants their child to be a 10 stone 10-year-old, paralysed by inertia, berserk through ADF, diagnosed with diabetes, high blood pressure and a 30-year-old’s arteries by the age of 15...
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Muriel Gray on reaction to the death of Steve Irwin
In terms of the prolific posthumous commentating that goes on when a public figure has died, it has always struck me as exceedingly mean, not to mention pointless, to speak ill of people. It goes without saying that the exception...
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THE topic for today is presbyopia. The chap from Lewis who writes to me angrily in CAPITAL LETTERS may be happy to know that this is nothing to do with Presbyterians against whom, he wrongly believes, I have a terrible...
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CelebrityWatch: Helen Archer rounds up all the week's hot maternity action from Hollywood
The big celebrity news of the week was, of course, the unveiling of Tom Cruise's new project : Fatherhood. He had been keeping it under wraps for some time, ironing out the details, the supporting cast, and there were, it...
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Forum editor Elizabeth Coldwell believes the ban on certain forms of pornography is dangerous
With the Government's plan to make the possession of violent porn punishable by three years in jail, and prevent access to images of already illegal acts such as bestiality and necrophilia, comes a real danger that we will criminalise many...
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Would you pay more just to get the right brand? Neil Boorman wonders why so many people do
Take two white t-shirts. They are identical in size, shape and quality, only one has a Nike logo on the breast. The non-branded shirt costs £5, Nike's costs £50. Considering they perform the same basic function, its unimaginable that anyone...
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