Laurie Graham

A couple of scrapings from the bottom of this week’s chunder bucket. First the news that Dr Alan Gribben, an American academic, is about to publish a de-niggered version of The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn. The word ‘slave’ has been substituted. His argument, and it is quite a fair one, is that children no longer read the…

    We saw off the last of the mince pies this afternoon and tomorrow the tree gets stripped ready for Mr Rent-a-Tree to take it back to the forest. All done bar paying the VISA bill, you might say. But actually, we still haven’t had Christmas. This year we are in the strange position of belonging…

Yesterday, St Stephen’s Day, we took two of the grandchildren, plus their cousin, to a matinee of Aladdin at the Gaiety Theatre in Dublin. What follows isn’t just my weekly blast of hot air. Later today I’ll be writing to the theatre to let them know my opinion. This is just by way of a little warm-up at…

  Here is the latest news on celebrity plans for what I regret to say is now called The Holiday Season. Liz Hurley will be getting amicably separated, Kate Middleton will be enjoying her last non-Sandringham Christmas, and Simon Cowell will be jet-skiing in Barbados. Which just leaves the question on everyone’s lips: what about Laurie Graham? Well,…

First of all thanks to my vigilant readers who alerted me to the fact that my website had disappeared. See what happens when you go away for the weekend? But here I am, back in business. Against the predicted odds we  made it to England. The hardest part of the journey was getting from our front door…

  Sensible Behaviour 101.   You are a person of mature years. You have   struggled through three days’ worth of snow  in order to buy analgesics. In Store A, a branch of an international chain, let us call it Open-Toed Sandals Ltd., the conversation goes roughly as follows: ‘Good Day, Sales Assistant. I wish to purchase Neurofen…

Sunday night and I’m already in a growly mood at the prospect of going to the airport on Tuesday morning. I hate what we have to go through in the name of non-discriminatory security but I hate even more the fact that I haven’t the guts to fight it. Make a fuss, you won’t be going…

  I’ve touched on the subject of  pigs before. It’s not that I’m particularly fond of them but I resent the way they get picked on by the uber-touchy PC brigade. That’s why I always wear my enamelled pig pin on my coat when I’m in England. One solicitous friend actually worried about me wearing…

So I finally made the chocolatey-chilli puddingy thing after various setbacks. My kitchen scales croaked and then on my way into the city to buy new scales I fell down the bus stairs and I began to wonder whether God was trying to tell me something. Like ‘No chocolate pudding, Laurie. You don’t need it.…

  I was down at the Tesco wine store this  morning looking for a bottle of dark rum. There was a great sucking of teeth. Dark rum? No demand for it these days. He said, ‘Doing a bit of baking are you? Your best bet is Devaney’s, next door to Rody Boland’s.’ Which was precisely…