Other Men's Flowers

If you don’t believe in God, there’s not much point in blasphemy. Similarly, now that the Windsors are not universally admired and respected...

I have had many appellations over the years, and it would be pleasant to recall here some of the more complimentary titles that were granted...

It is hard to imagine anyone in the eighteenth century doing exercises, with their wigs falling off and their crinolines getting all rumpled...

This is an obsolete name for what was later called MPD (multiple personality disorder), which in turn has now been re-named DID (dissociativ...

An overcast and rather depressing Monday morning was not brightened for me when I discovered what the Oxford University Press has chosen as ...

Answering a question on May 31 about criticism made by Amnesty International regarding the treatment of detainees at Guantanamo Bay, George...

I seem to have been posting a succession of serious and wordy items this month. For a change, here is a nice picture of Jesus riding a dipl...

All over the world, distinguished consultants, advisers and contributors are working on amendments and additions to the Oxford English Dicti...

We English have always excelled at the intemperate expression of our prejudice, anger or contempt, and simple amateurs like Disgusted of Tun...

In an informal context (like down the pub) I sometimes permit close friends to refer to this blog by its initials. One might think that thes...

Interesting that my friend Teddy III in Boston doesn’t even mention New York when he writes in his blog about the venue for 2012. He's...

The other day the Daily Telegraph cheerfully published a piece by the criminal liar Jonathan Aitken rejecting the claim by a former CIA man...

coprolalia , n. Cursing, uttering obscenities, the explosive utterance of swearwords or more elaborate sexual, aggressive or insulting state...

One more bore, and then I will find another topic. This time, I am the bore. I cannot really claim to be a top rank bore because I don’t h...

Here’s another bore, quite unforgettable although it’s many years since I met him. We didn’t have gap years in those days, but there was a...

Leaving the theme of boredom for the moment - no, hang on, continuing with the same theme – The Chelsea Flower Show is about to open. I have...

Following the previous post, I shall stay on the theme of boredom for a while; I have at least two more Grade A bores to write about, both o...

Major league bores are of many kinds, but the commonest variety have one characteristic: everything they say, but everything, is either a st...

A year ago I commented on the fact that the French, pauvres types , seem to have only one limerick , and no-one wrote to tell me of another....

"Unlike most toads, wealth toad has three limbs and a pair of red fiery eyes and is commonly seen offering an ancient Chinese coin in i...