February 11, 2022 Columns by John Connor 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, “Whatās 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…
January 21, 2022 Columns by John Connor 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. Iām pleased to report that Iāve found a whole series of admittedly fiddly workarounds. Iām even…
August 13, 2021 Columns by John Connor MS Presents āHorror 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”…
April 23, 2021 Columns by John Connor 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…
October 9, 2020 Columns by John Connor 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…
August 21, 2020 Columns by John Connor ‘Apocalypse Now’: I Love the Smell of Hashish in the Morning Helicopters were whirling in my brain. Turns out, it was a solitary police one. Though it was another hot night, my wife closed my windows in case of a prowler. I’m on the ground floor, after all. It was a dark moment in my life. Another relapse had struck…
August 7, 2020 Columns by John Connor 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…