Let's end the annual rigmarole of New Year's Honours

3:32pm Wednesday 7th January 2009

Another New Year, another unedifying wrangle over the New Year’s Honours list. The focus of complaint this year was that there was no knighthood for the octogenarian entertainer Bruce Forsyth. Ought there to have been? Certainly, in the opinion of a body of his fans who appeared to believe that their online campaign to land him a ‘K’ should have paid off. Others will scoff at the notion that those responsible for this fatuous annual rigmarole could take any account of public opinion.

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I'm mystified by gaps in the frozen canal

3:35pm Wednesday 7th January 2009

Cycling in the winter sunshine of the past few days has been the perfect way to brace up to the new year after the lethargy of the festive season. The beauty of the landscape along my favourite waterside route has been significantly improved by the Oxford Canal having frozen over for the first time in a good few years.

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Looking back on a decade of Gray Matter

3:03pm Wednesday 17th December 2008

I allowed an important milestone in the history of this column to pass without acknowledgement earlier in the year. This was the tenth anniversary of Gray Matter’s first appearance. That this happened to be on May 1, Labour Day, was entirely coincidental, though not inappropriate in view of my leftward leanings.

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Lucky that Woolies lasted as long as it did

4:16pm Wednesday 10th December 2008

The “wonder of good old Woolies” is that it lasted so long. A store group so monumentally awful deserved to go to the wall decades ago. Even in my childhood, in those austerity days when most things were tolerated, Woolies was synonymous with tat – gimcrack rubbish sold, it was whispered, by girls who were “no better than they ought to be”. The very term ‘shop girl’ even today possesses pejorative overtones among people of a certain age.

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Sign brings to mind a motoring tale

3:48pm Wednesday 3rd December 2008

A sign promoting Mr Clutch jumped out at me, so to speak, as I was cycling down the Cowley Road a few days ago. The name of the business reminded me of a story a pal told me some time ago, concerning a friend of his.

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Opportunities for all - at a price

3:44pm Wednesday 3rd December 2008

The blackboard message outside the Cavalier, in Copse Lane, Marston, sums up the position admirably. “Pubs are closin’,” it says. “Don’t let this pub be one of them. Pop in for a drink.” In essence, people are being told to use it or lose it. It would seem from another sign on the pub (see below) that a change of management there is in the offing; indeed, may already have happened. “Pub business opportunity available to let,” the notice says.

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Parking spaces saga ends in the usual mess

3:17pm Wednesday 26th November 2008

Even older than Jonathan Ross as a topic of concern for this column has been the state of parking in my neighbourhood of Osney Island. Spaces are at a premium here, and as long ago as 1999 I began complaining of the number permanently out of use through being set aside for non-existent disabled residents. The people for whom they had originally been provided (I knew nearly all of them) had variously given up their cars, moved away or sadly died.

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Licence boycott is no answer to Ross

3:14pm Wednesday 26th November 2008

I find it hard to decide whom I dislike more. Is it the vile Jonathan Ross, or the growing band of television licence refusniks who say they will not pay up until the BBC dispenses with his services?

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Why can't I buy a good woollen tie?

3:42pm Wednesday 19th November 2008

As the man credited with the introduction of the tie into the male wardrobe, Beau Brummell might wonder at what seems to have happened to this important accessory over the past decade or so. In short, for reasons that I cannot understand, the choice of material for smart neckwear appears now to be confined almost entirely to silk or (yuk) polyester. Woollen ties seem to exist only in ‘chunky’ country styles.

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Double delight from Simon and Freddie

3:40pm Wednesday 19th November 2008

The books arrived in the same post – the first from a writer with whom I share a name, the second from one with whom I share a birthday (August 14, if you want to send me a card).

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