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The Big Blue Bag and a ‘Cast Away’ Bed

Once upon a time, long, long ago, when I was very young, we British children would be asked, “Whatā€™s through the round window?” The line was from a TV series called “Play School.” The swinging ’60s may have been breaking in London, but culturally, this was the happening show…

The World According to MS Ennui

Move along, move along. Nothing to read here. What a great start to a column! Last week, my worries about MS lifted as I was consumed by a glitch in my computer software. Iā€™m pleased to report that Iā€™ve found a whole series of admittedly fiddly workarounds. Iā€™m even…

MS Presents ā€˜Horror Weekendsā€™

I have always liked the odd horror movie, the odder the better. I was a bit of a fan of the trash Troma Studio mob, where their tongue was so firmly in their cheek it usually stuck right through it. For you youngsters out there, think the “Sharknado”…

My Own ‘Left Hand of Darkness’

I was listening to a BBC podcast recently titled “The Sinister Hand,” about the history of left-handers. It seems that in medieval times, left-handedness was associated with sorcery. (What wasn’t?) It was only relatively recently that left-handed children were no longer forced to write right-handed ā€” sometimes even…

Fighting the Beast

It was 3 p.m. last Thursday. Things should have been good. I had filed the copy for my previous column the day before. Ultimately, some of my outrageous musings had gone, and some I considered even worse had stayed. It’s an age-old journalism, radio, and TV writer’s trick: If…

It Was a Lazy Sunday Afternoon ā€” Not!

It all started on the hottest day of the year here in the U.K. My phone said it was 99 F. An old friend was coming over, and my youngest son, Jack, had kindly cleared a route to the garden. So, when she arrived, I took the route. We all…