Laurie Graham

  Today I lift and paste, without apology, from Inspector Gadget’s most recent post. I do it because, having just returned from the UK  his theme is very much on my mind, and because I really can’t improve on what he says. If nothing else, I hope it will encourage you to read his excellent…

When I haven’t blogged for a week there are inevitably too many subjects queued for take-off for me to confine myself to a single theme. I’ll begin with the most recent: custard pies.  Aside from the fact that Rupert Murdoch’s attacker made the police look like plonkers, wasn’t there something sublimely English about the choice…

I have a question about the subduing of an unruly passenger on yesterday’s United Airlines flight 944 from Chicago to Frankfurt. Who provided the duct tape? Do cabin crews routinely carry duct tape? Is it with the peanuts in the drinks’ trolley? Was there perhaps a home-repair enthusiast on board, the kind of guy who never leaves home without a…

This is John Atkinson Grimshaw, a Victorian painter who’s having a well-deserved revival, in my life and in the wider world. My first husband and I had his Liverpool Quay by Moonlight on our dining room wall for many years. It received the curled lip from some of our more progressive friends  –   why have a Grimshaw when…

Here it is, folks. Proof positive that Ed Miliband is a robot. Watch it to the end. If you can bear to.  http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=PZtVm8wtyFI

 Old Glory flew from the deck outside our kitchen today. Of course given the current state of the US economy the word ‘Independence’ rings a bit hollow but Mr F is a patriot, albeit an absent one. It can be a delicate subject. ‘If you love America why did you leave?’ is a perfectly legitimate…

… for gooseberries. I just found a tray of these rare beauties at the farmers’ market. I’ve looked for them ever since we left Italy  –  they are a mystery to Italians, as unfathomable as rhubarb or horseradish. Last summer I asked at a few local shops but all I got was a rueful shaking of the…

 We didn’t go to church this morning because, well, never mind why … without church Sunday is shapeless. Mr F went out for newspapers while I waited for a friend’s taxi to arrive to take him to the airport. I wish a) my husband wouldn’t buy newspapers and b) I could find the self-discipline not to…

As I was saying before I was enveloped in a red haze, the C word that really gets you into trouble these days is ‘conservative’. The assumption is made, particularly in media circles, that one is a member of the socialism-lite club. That one has wrapped oneself if not in the nasty old-fashioned hammer and sickle…

   Yesterday was Memorial Saturday in the Orthodox Church, sometimes called Soul Saturday but that rings a bit too funky for me.  In the church calendar there are several of these commemorations of the dead, the Saturday before Pentecost  being one of them. So yesterday an extra Liturgy was celebrated followed by a panikhida or memorial…