Other Men's Flowers

Off to Portugal so no more posts for a couple of weeks. Northern Portugal, not the Algarve. I hear they've had mosquitos there, blown o...

I have no need to apologise to my Italian friends for this; it was passed to me by a French friend. One day I go abroad and stay in bigga ho...

I met a man the other day who by some mischance had never seen George Dubya and Tony in duet (assisted by Lionel Richie and Diana Ross). In ...

When you come to the world of weblogs for the first time and look at a few dozen of them you will probably find to your horror that they are...

Many Americans seem to believe that Fox News provides a balanced, impartial viewpoint, but its right-wing bias is apparent from the merest ...

His Witnesses were at our door the other day, a rather sad blonde one in a chiffon dress, a jolly black girl with a nice white shirt, and a ...

Some years ago I worked as a part-time French to English technical translator in such fields as the gas industry. This was pretty boring but...

Dalmatians used to run along behind the carriage, to great decorative effect. This didn't require a great deal of intelligence, and it i...

It was a moment of inattention on my part which would have caused a small biff if the other driver had not braked with commendable speed of ...

Other Men's Flowers has attracted some criticism for being frivolous and aimed almost entirely at the very young. I am told it lacks gr...

The Shorter OED just describes it as an infantile word expressing thanks, first noted in print in 1772, but Partridge’s Dictionary of Slang ...

(The Taming of the Shrew, v, ii.) The nation-wide hilarity inspired by the Diana Memorial Fiasco – which began with the sight of the Queen’s...

Open-air performances usually encourage you to provide some of the facilities for yourself: you can bring your own chairs, tables, food, dri...

The weather was absolutely perfect last Saturday and we found a perfect way of ending the day. Imagine, if you will, the ruins of an ancient...

A little booklet just published called Safe Names (New Writers’ Association, £3.95) will be a boon not only to new writers but to all writer...

"The world's smallest guitar, 20 times thinner than a human hair, has been built by scientists at Cornell University, carving it ou...

Faster, Higher, Richer is the motto (more or less) of the modern Olympic Games, which were devised by Pierre de Coubertin at the end of the ...

This is the 101st post in this blog . A selectors' panel, chosen from among the most distinguished literary critics of a dozen count...

Who is this? Clue:  This photo was taken in 1965 when he was in disguise, aged 37. Two years later he died. Answer

mug n. drinking vessel mug n. face mug n. gullible person mug v.i. study hard mug v.t. rob with violence mug v.i. make fac...