Isn’t this just wonderful ? It isn’t ? Sir, you have no taste, none that can be measured anyway. I must admit to watching the white girl backing singer in the background throughout the video, poor lass doesn’t know what to do with her hands, hasn’t learned the moves, but is gorgeous for all that.

He would have been 67 on Thursday As I revised to my O levels at home through a hot early summer in 1973 this song was rarely off the radio, I bought the single and it was rarely off our old monogram radiogram with the huge bass speaker that could demolish walls with its reverb [...]

This weekend we venture to this place To play golf, two rounds over two days, one night in the hotel, all meals provided, very reasonable price. To play golf, its worth repeating.

You see, there is this oft-mistaken theory that there’s no cooking like home cooking and that your mothers cooking cannot be beat, not even by Gordon Ramsey. I say oft-mistaken for it would be a grievous mistake to judge my mothers cooking alongside Gordon Ramseys cooking, or anyone elses cooking for that case for my [...]

Country & Western music, we could call it Country & Western music back in the 70s and no-one was in any doubt about what we spoke of, you can’t call it C&W these days, they don’t like the tag. Whitley Bay was a hotbed of C&W music in the late 70s, I know not why, [...]

So, its December 30th 1976, and we have found ourselves for some inexplicable reason high up in the Pennines sharing an empty barn with some of Charlie Smiths Venture Scout mates, its cold, the coldest night of the year, the barn has no heating, its barely got windows, its certainly not draught proof and its [...]

We had a strange record when it came to recruiting apprentices, well not so much recruiting as getting rid of them. When I joined my fathers company I knew nothing about his business or the equipment that he sold and serviced, I became a fast-track trainee and in that respect I suppose I was his [...]

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=72r50PZ7r3E (You’ll have to click the link and view it in YouTube as the Olympic Committee won’t allow it to be shown outside of the USA, can’t embed it – true story) Hurrah for the USA bobsleigh team of 1932, real snow that fell from the sky and all that, woollen jumpers instead of lycra [...]

I’m guessing that this is 1976, its the Eagles and I’m, guessing that its the end of year gig that I watched on New Years Eve of that year, mainly because this performance has Jackson Browne and Linda Ronstadt guesting. I’d been to a really poor New Years Eve party, had come back from a [...]

Canisp, The White Mountain in the Northern Highlands, Scotland, so called not for its snow cap but for the quartz in its cliff faces Acrylic on primed textured paper, 40cm x 24cm, this painting is available to purchase on http://artgallery.co.uk