At the end of the 22nd century, as entire populations are rendered extinct, Continents drown under increasing sea levels and the gossamer ozone layer ensures that remaining survivors of the human race will be fried like California raisins, historians will look back upon 13th December 2009, upon the United Nations Conference on Climate Change in [...]
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Wake up in mum’s spare room, which many moons ago was my own teenage den of iniquity, festooned with West Ham United flags, a framed, signed Trevor Brooking photo and a meticulously constructed Lego town boasting an infrastructure that would shame a fast-growing Far Eastern metropolis. All that I was missing was my “Petronas Towers”, but unfortunately [...]
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Nativity Day! Lily recites her lines over her healthy breakfast of “Oat-i-bix” and banana, purportedly the ideal petit-dejeuner for any aspiring method actor on the verge of their big break. Afterwards, instead of “Charlie & Lola” and “Peppa Pig”, we sit down to watch “Sophie’s Choice” one final time, so that she knows exactly the standard her [...]
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Nativity -1 day. Right, that’s it. Lily is frog-marched back to school, even though she sounds as if she is only just recovering from the bubonic plague. I worry that her missing rehearsals will imperil her BAFTA winning performance as the “dame”, now a significant figure in the New Testament, along with Little Bo Peep, [...]
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Nativity -2 days. Lily is still convalescing, but her minx-like habits are beginning to return and she has started calling me “smelly” and “stinky” every other nanosecond, a sign that she is returning to normal, whatever “normal” means to a four, nearly five-year old. I am concerned that she has not produced a script, so [...]
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I’ve been thinking recently. A new pastime, but I am getting used to it. No…I have been thinking about the bridge, the Moselhighbridge, that is due to span the Mosel Valley near Urzig, thus destroying prime vineyard sites, centuries of viticultural heritage and generally spoiling what is a splendid view. Call me defeatist, but once [...]
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Nativity -2 days. Unfortunately Lily’s multifarious maladies linger, so I have called the Infants school to put her understudy on stand by. I feel terrible, and have double-checked my will in order to avoid a legal fight over who inherits my collection of Prince 12-inches. But there is no rest for the weekend. After working [...]
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Wake up to the usual Sunday morning monsoon. Lily is still poorly…hopefully it is not bird flu, swine flu or whatever is the pandemic de jour. I spend the morning tweaking my Climens article for the millionth time (this week), flick through the Observer newspaper and learn a new word (scrufulous), tidy up the garden in a brief [...]
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Oh dear. Lily has succumbed to a cold. Her mischeivous nature has temporarily disappeared, she has flopped onto the sofa like a rag doll, refuses to eat and talks in a croaky voice that is distressing, but also undeniably cute. I too, feel the first symptoms of a winter cold, a nagging soreness in my throat, [...]
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