I rather loved the reports at the weekend that manuscript scholar Dr Heather Wolfe has now proved beyond doubt that William Shakespeare wrote all his own plays. For centuries, people like Mark Twain, Sigmund Freud and Charlie Chaplin have argued that someone else wrote at least half of his great works, mostly on the basis …
Child 2 is starting an actual JOB today so last week was all about saying goodbye to things like lie-ins, Netflix and a carefree youth … well, not really but it does seem like a huge step, even if it’s only for two terms before uni starts. So we decided to mark the occasion with …
I have a good feeling about 2017. Compare these two scenes: The first, in the dying days of 2016, was a special festive outing with the wider family. A show had been chosen to appeal to as many of us as possible and we were meeting at a restaurant in Borough Market beforehand. I arrived …
Things I’ve learned about school Christmas and Nativity shows over the years: It’s a very brave primary school that runs a string quartet for year 4 kids. It’s an even braver school that lets the children go ahead with their number when the teacher has cried off saying they’re ill. If you are the violin …
What a year it’s been for women. And NOT in a good way. We’ve had to watch a smart, capable woman being bullied by, frankly, a total arse of a man for months. Remember those TV debates with Trump lurking oddly behind Clinton like a mad orange stalker, or blurting out that she was a …
Sponsored post Now that Child One and Child Two are more of a peripatetic presence at home, I spend a lot of time fretting over the cats instead – I suppose I have a space for worrying in my head, which just gets filled by the nearest dependents. If they’re cute, furry, and a bit …
Sponsored post There’s a rather lovely Christmas campaign from Sainsbury’s this year all about spending time with family, which I heartily approve of, or will do until we all fall out (probably around 10am on the first day when we are all safely gathered in). Although, of course, it’s a commercial from a company that …
I’ve been thinking a lot about competition, or competitiveness, of late. This is partly because I’ve embraced the inevitable and joined a bridge club, and partly because our beloved cat, Blackjack, keeps getting into fearsome fights. You might remember that Blackjack had big trouble a while ago when a neighbourhood bully decided to sink a …
It’s all been going a bit pear-shaped since the weekend when Something Bad happened to our local water main and the taps dried up. Though the supply got going again by nightfall, we had a very brief taste of how difficult life must be for the millions of people who don’t have access to running …
We went to the Royal Opera House, Covent Garden last week and had a gorgeous time that for me, naughtily, had very little to do with what was on stage. The show we were seeing was Chroma by Wayne McGregor, with music from the White Stripes. Wayne McGregor has been resident choreographer of the ROH …