Other Men's Flowers

...And beat him when he sneezes He only does it to annoy Because he knows it teases James Thurber was once asked by a publisher to provide ...

In G K Chesterton's The Man Who Was Thursday an actor successfully takes on the identity of a distinguished academic. He tells how this...

Ogden : what a man he was! Linguist, philosopher, inventor of Basic English, co-translator of Wittgenstein's great Tractatus , co-author...

A resounding raspberry was delivered in the House of Commons last night to Cardinal O'Connor, David Cameron, Ruth Kelly, Nadine Dorries ...

I can remember the thrill of seeing the Cinemascope version of The Robe . When it opened the screen got wider and wider and we all gasped in...

Funny how things stick in the mind. It is many years since I last heard tell of a girl named Nancy Brown, and I thought I had forgotten the ...

I have just been watching Le Quai des Brumes , Marcel Carné's 1938 film with Alexis Moncourgé, better known as Jean Gabin, Michèle Morga...

I posted a note recently about the misunderstandings that can be caused by constipation and constipado. This sort of thing happens often ...

Nowadays his minders are just like those of any other celebrities: highly trained, inconspicuously dressed, watchful eyes in expressionless...

When I was very young I heard an old Russian folk ballad called Volga, Volga mat' rodnaya or Stenka Razin and thought Hullo, that'...

With its Saturday edition The Guardian gave away a pretty multicoloured chart of the periodic table. I remember finding the one on the wall...

No need to commiserate with those who have chosen to put an idiot in charge of their city; they will get what they deserve, all 1,168,738 o...

More recycled posts from 2004: people, theatre Homage to Gielgud business It's NOT a gherkin royals Illegal domain computers A third of ...

I really cannot say why I find this picture of the Rambert Dance Company hugely funny, but I do, I do. Is it the sheer panache , or is it j...

George W Bush has been such a gift to cartoonists that many of them must be concerned about his successor, wondering whether he/she will be ...

This singer starred in a number of mostly unmemorable films , though the Paramount low-budget film-revue Big Broadcast of 1936 also had Bi...

At the Barcelona Olympic Games in 1992 I was a sort of official, so they provided me with a car and a young student to drive it. Antonio sp...

Gwyneth Dunwoody , the longest-serving female member of Parliament, able, fiercely independent-minded and an all-round good egg, died last ...

In 2000 I spent a highly convivial evening at a restaurant in Prague, towards the end of which we asked the little orchestra to play the fi...

These cryptic and intriguing words are part of the subject line of an email I have just received. What can the email be about? It is in fact...