Growing Up On The Set Of DUTY FREE

It’s finally time for me to lift the lid on a subject I haven’t talked about before, but after a flurry of interest in the topic over the past few weeks, I can’t avoid it any longer. As you know, I try to keep some things quiet, and private, especially when it comes to my […]


Crisis And Broadening My Horizons

There were always comics in my house growing up, as with many people my age. They were everywhere, selling huge numbers, and across many genres. Every newsagent had shelves of them, covering all bases – the war comics, the sci-fi comics, the girls comics, the licensed tie-ins, and the humour comics that first caught my […]


Jordan, The Last Dance And Being Competitive

Late to the party as usual, but I’ve just finished THE LAST DANCE on Netflix, the hugely popular documentary series that focusses on the career of Michael Jordan, framed around the “Last Dance” of the title – the final season in his career as he and his Chicago Bulls team push for their final championship […]


On Podcasts

Everyone seems to have their own podcast. I’ve even got a podcast for other writers. I’ve found myself enjoying the format more and more during the daily dog walk with Scout.   Finding the time for listening to a good podcast is as rare as hen’s teeth in ordinary circumstances. I’ve tried listening whilst I […]


The Cycle Path Test

It’s happened. I fear I have finally tipped over into cliché. I have bought myself a road bike.   It’s all with the best intentions. Having only – until relatively recently – been given the chance to leave the house for an hour a day for government-mandated exercise, I found that I had exhausted every […]


The Little Things

I’ve been pondering. We’re still in lockdown here, and life is still peculiar and worrying. My family and I are safe, thank goodness, but that doesn’t mean that there aren’t things that we aren’t all missing. I don’t want to dwell on things to make us all maudlin, or to forget the necessity of why […]


Cutting Loose

As you might have noticed from my posts, I’ve been able to work through a bit more of my “to watch” list over the lockdown weeks. Not too much; home-schooling and maintaining key entertainment roles, all whilst trying to put Milton through the wringer, have left me pretty wiped. Even with much of the entertainment […]


Homeland And Art Reflecting Life

Shuffling through my lockdown library… One of the shows that I am watching for escapism has been HOMELAND, which is moving towards its conclusion after a very good innings. It struck me that it stands out as a great example of art being drawn from life, and has me wondering what the current global upheaval […]


Home Computing In The Pre-Cambrian Era

I’ve talked about many of my influences before, but another massive part of my formative years was having a childhood that corresponded with home computing becoming a reality, and not a far off pipe dream only talked about on dusty science programmes. Our childhood computers were the quirkily Anglocentric Sinclair ZX81 and 48k Spectrum, rubber-keys […]


Look For The Helpers

Something I’ve really found heartening lately is the explosion of community, care and innovation from people determined to make the best of this difficult situation we find ourselves in. I’ve titled this piece after a well-worn meme that circulates social media whenever something awful happens – it’s ascribed to Fred Rogers, who I know will […]