I no longer have any expectations..... no point; it never snows any more at Christmas; at least not in the South East. Was it ever magical? I think it was – I remember. Summers were brighter and winters were colder, all the seasons were more defined. During the winter of 63 the snowman at the end of the road by the lone Scots pine stood for weeks. Expectations, disappointment, excitement, – the stuff of childhood, that we can struggle more with as adults. We lived in Twicken

And further more! One great thing about being an adult is knowing stuff and also knowing that adults are just other people. At school teachers are another breed, a kind of special category of adult for better or mainly worse if my memory serves. Never start a sentence with AND they said. It was wrong to do so – it broke the rules of grammar. In fact you got a red cross. And what child can challenge an angry red mark in their exercise book? It had authority and was blood

Can you judge a book by it's cover? – Can you judge the Zeitgeist by a Book Shop? I have been drawn inexorably into Blackwells again. Winter driving me to it's comforts. Four floors of cosiness plus a cafe on the first floor. There could be a whole section called The Zeitgeist. Or can the whole book shop pick up on the pulse of what is going down? It wasn't that long ago that some nerdy people were predicting the death of the book...as they did vinyl. There is one great thing

Amazing leg room on the flight from Gatwick and I have no body sat beside me – I was randomly allocated a seat over the wings, the friendly flight crew told me that I must help with the emergency escape hatch – which was nice. I was free - all this space about me! Plus the emergency exit! A very tall man sat in the aisle seat, put on an eye mask, extended his legs and went to sleep – blocking me off from everything. I hate disturbing people when shut in on planes or at the

The Horror! The Horror! I get the hell out of my space; in an effort to improve my mood that is just this side of being depressed. The feeling of being shut in with the dark nights doesn't help. Stop it now Ricster- this isn't about you. I'm popping into Blackwell's for one of it's excellent talks in the basement Norrington Room. Blackwell's is a womb like sanctuary in Oxford -it's tardis like, with a frontage that belies it's size. A book shop is a great comfort – in a di

It would be much simpler if I wanted to blog about a special interest – such as Model Railway's or “Why aren't my poison dart frogs breeding?” I would imagine much safer, on the whole anyway but I'm sure if I had a following other issues could well creep in....hey I'm not dressing up for Halloween as it happens...just sayin dudes. So being aware of the risk of being drawn into the cauldron of anti-social media. The great feeding frenzy of opinion and hyper-connected post

Saturday 20th 2018 On the X90, Oxford to London; from one remain stronghold to another, to see ' People Like Us' a new play by Julie Burchill and Jane Robins! I quote: “A play about Sex and Brexit”... what could possibly go wrong? The bus is diverted, so I make my way onward from Shepherds bush; where would London be without the tube? On the tube I reflected on what a great multi-cultural success London has become– last nights BBC 4 music night had taken me back to the dre