Passed an old schoolfriend on the Movietowne escalators yesterday. He was going up and I, down, and that could be a reflection of our respective careers, but we grinned at one another and slapped hands hello across the moving bannister bands between us as we passed one another. It might have been the sixth or seventh time  I’d seen him in the 30-plus years since leaving St Mary’s College, we two Boys of the Old White & Blue, but, just

In the last week, I’ve clocked more travelling miles than an airline counter check-in clerk, and less sleep than Keith Richards in the Seventies. The upside is, the moment you close your eyes, you drop into a deep, dreamless sleep; the downside is, the moment you close your eyes, it seems, you have to open them. Extrapolating from my own tiny version of it over the last eight days or so, I can’t begin

In the last 38 hours, I’ve had less than five hours’ sleep and I don’t blame you for wondering if I’m blogging just to stay awake. I’ve actually been feeling better in the last hour than I have in any of the preceding 37 because 45 minutes of that last hour were spent asleep. You cannot know gratitude fully without deprivation. This morning, when I was done helping (a little) to settle my son’s football club’s touring teams to

Bribed my way into the Wayne Bruno and the Rapid Response Band’s rehearsal yesterday for David Rudder Six-Point-Oh with some jerk fish and rice-and-peas for the singer, and have now got myself hyped up way too early for tomorrow night’s gig. Unlike almost everyone who’ll be there, I now know the first three songs in the set list and my feet are still tapping. I’m chuckling to myself because there are going to be some surprises for the audience. I know David has been teasing the prospective audience on Facebook to expect the unexpected, and

The unholy busy days continue, wreaking havoc on my psyche which, as you know, is geared towards idleness - but at least it’s only my mood getting messed with; over in London SW19, things were going really firetrucking crazy yesterday. This week, Wimbledon started with Rafael Nadal’s straight set exit on Monday morning, and continued yesterday