Other Men's Flowers

It's not surprising that very few of the posts on this blog attract any comments. The explanation could be that its most constant reader...

If that's the effect you're after, I suppose it's easy enough to get a hairdresser to come and walk about on your head every mor...

A woman whom I had believed to be an ardent reader of OMF has just sent me this: "I had my own blog for a while but I decided to go bac...

Here’s a book jacket with all the understated charm and elegance of those they used to put round dime novels. Michael Moore’s polemic was wr...

The internet – particularly the blogosphere – provides great opportunities for sociological study. One can compare and contrast the aspirati...

Having publicly confessed to my deficiencies in the field of sport, I might as well own up to my total lack of artistic talent or appreciati...

I have been taken to task by one of my nearest and dearest for having expressed mild irritation at the brouhaha over the English cricket tea...

In a few days time my three months’ subscription to the online Oxford English Dictionary will expire, and I haven’t really been making enoug...

Consider the situation: A number of our fellow-countrymen separated from the majority of us by religious beliefs but relatively happily inte...

That is a phrase which I associate with American matrons expressing surprise; the OED gives a quotation dated 1839 from Kavanagh by Longfel...

I must have missed the announcement in January of the 2005 Diagram winner, and I have only just caught up. This prize (a magnum of champagne...

A fair and comprehensive review of any performance or work of art of any kind must examine the following: What is the artist trying to achie...

Yesterday Baton Rouge’s emergency co-ordinator, Irma Plummer, tears in her eyes, asked God to help the town: You have reminded us of how str...

Bought some by mistake the other day. Do the people who use this stuff really enjoy getting up in the morning and smearing their faces with ...

The boat we were on last week held 1,750 passengers and 980 crew. Some of the latter had titles like Chief Engineer, Bosun’s Mate, Master at...

Yes, nice holiday, thank you. Samuel Johnson said that going to sea is like going to prison with the chance of being drowned, and a hundred ...

No more posts for a couple of weeks. We are going in a sort of floating Harrods to the North Sea, particularly the crinkly bits of Norway fo...

Regular readers of Other Men's Flowers - three or four people log on to it almost every month - know me well and are aware that most of ...

According to the Sunday Times, Muammar Gadaffi reveals in his autobiography that he was was a Scout for seven years and drew early inspirati...

“…always scribble, scribble, scribble! Eh, Mr Gibbon?" This was the Duke of Gloucester’s less than gracious comment upon receiving the...