I watched a film called âRushâ a while ago. It tells the story of the rivalry between James Hunt and Niki Lauda. Since I am not a petrol head I did not really know the story.
Continue reading →Rush Hours
The Shipping Forecast
So many nautical terms are open to misinterpretation by landlubbers that anyone poised to set sail really needs to know a gash fanny from a cunt splice; failure to do so could result in kissing the gunnerâs
Continue reading →A Kiss is just a Kiss…
Trading masticatory juices with someone who may have just consumed something on the menu that you wouldn’t have dreamt of choosing is such a part of western culture that virtually all of us have engaged in it at
Continue reading →Obama Vista Social Club
Family feuds can drag on for decades. Weâve all known siblings who had a big bust-up over something years ago, something nobody can even remember anymore, and still refuse to be in the same room as one another,
Continue reading →Blowing One’s Trumpet
Momentarily putting aside those issues that invoke impassioned debate as well as those that inspire apathy, allow the management the luxury of basking in the rewards of their endeavours, pop-pickers. The latest figures for the top
Continue reading →Virtual Murder
The great sea change, believed JG Ballard, was the assassination of President Kennedy. The author whose theory was expanded in his 1970 collection of stories, âThe Atrocity Exhibitionâ, saw the shocking events of November 22 1963
Continue reading →Greyfriars’ Blobby
âWhat are you beastly rotters smirking about?â asked Billy Bunter as he stepped outside of the Commons and saw the Bullingdon Boys chortling over something they were looking at in the newspaper they were all gathered round.
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Is it coz I is Black?
I know some of you out there are regular Radio 4 listeners and I know some of you are familiar with the stationâs forays into the world of situation comedy. I myself only find a couple of
Continue reading →Proctor Gambles on Fairy Transparency.
Harvey Proctor has unsheathed his ‘sword of truth’ and come out fighting; unwilling to cower in the closet any longer whilst rumours swirl around the Internet.
Taking the lectern in the Marlborough Suite, he issued a
Continue reading →Stormin' Corbyn
Ah, Jeremy ‘I’m too sexy for my vest’ Corbyn; the political gift for whom everyday is Christmas Day. It has made the dog days of August so much more enjoyable watching the Labour party tremble lest one of
Continue reading →A Quick Pitt Stop
I came across this photograph the other day. It made me smile and it made me a bit sad. It was obviously taken at the height of the Hammer Horror craze, and summed up all the
Continue reading →Saturday Superstore
The Great British shopping experience as it had been known for generations received its first vision of the future at precisely the halfway point of the twentieth century â when Sainsburyâs opened their first self-service âsupermarketâ
Continue reading →Snail’s Pace Development.
One of the few beliefs in their own omnipotence that the Romans didn’t hold, was a belief that they could walk on water; thus when they wished to travel from the sand dune known as Great Yarmouth to
Continue reading →Madison Avenues and Alleyways
16 million private records leaked online, including credit card transactions linked to email addresses, dates of birth, telephone numbers â the work of hackers yet again. Not nice, this is true; but context counts for a lot
Continue reading →Bullying and the Misuses of Social Media
When I was at school, in my mid teens, I was relentlessly and pretty badly bullied for a couple of years. It was very bad stuff, mostly but not always psychological. I can see now, with
Continue reading →Laugh? I Nearly Had a Legal High
Young people discover a new way to enjoy themselves that doesnât adhere to the official social guidelines and the government intervenes on behalf of those it doesnât affect under the guise of doing so on behalf of
Continue reading →Time to revisit Gillick?
Way back in the mists of time, when the Labour party was merely middle aged, Jeremy Corbyn was still wearing short trousers, and no one knew that veering to
Continue reading →Sunday Miscellany
Hello Raccoonistas. I have been away for a while. Some things have diverted me. But I could not let this weekend pass without a voice. 70 years since the end of the Second World War. I
Continue reading →Parish Notice.
Ms Raccoon duly attended her quarterly interview with the oncologist on Friday; delighted to tell you that you will have to put up with me for longer than predicted – it seems the Letrozole is having some beneficial
Continue reading →The Saturday Matinee
Art has the ability to facilitate change, particularly how one looks at the world and the people in it. Both novels and albums have done it for me at different times of my life, but before either
Continue reading →Global Swarming…
Listening to Radio 4 in the car the other day, to a sympathetic voice interviewing one of the sad ISIS fighters migrants refugees trafficked persons, that had just been hauled out of the briny by an Italian rescue boat, something about their story
Married to The Mob
Collective hysteria can take many forms. One of the first examples I was ever exposed to was ultimately benign and came in October 1973. I was watching âJohn Cravenâs Newsroundâ covering the chaos that accompanied The Osmonds
Continue reading →Never Mind the Bollocks.
One of the enduring on-line Savile myths is that the arch anarchist ‘Johnny Rotten’, as John Lydon became known, ‘warned the BBC about Savile’ in 1978 – but the interview was ‘censored by the BBC’. The sub-text being ‘If
Continue reading →The Single File
Bachelor is still a word that conjures up a certain antiquated cool; it evokes images of glamour, both in the surroundings a bachelor knows as home and in his swish sartorial uniform. One thinks of convertible sports cars, jet-setting
Continue reading →Batman n' Robbin'.
There can be no sadder sight than a hot air ballon collapsing in ignominy. Speaking as someone who once spent some months working for a hot air balloon company, I know just how many hours go into stitching
Continue reading →Time Gentlemen, Please!
Years ago, I found a small brass object hidden at the back of the drawer in a desk I had bought at auction. It sits on my windowsill to this day; partly testament to the years it took
Continue reading →Off He Went with a Trumpetty-Trump
For those old enough to remember Jon Pertwee and Tom Baker, observing the current Labour leadership contest is a bit like having to decide between Colin Baker and Sylvester Mc Coy as the next Doctor Who. Jeremy
Continue reading →I Think We’ve Been Here Before
It may surprise you to know that we on the management side of the Raccoon Arms have occasional episodes in our lives that don’t involve pulling pints and breaking-up fights. Both me and ‘er upstairs have each enjoyed
Continue reading →Hiroshima, Mon Amour
Our touchy-feely age is one in which families are encouraged to be âopenâ. The old notion of skeletons in the ancestral closet being kept there has been usurped by the growth of the genealogy industry and the
Continue reading →What about the Boyos?
Amnesty International is as right-on, bleeding heart, liberal as it comes. Since 1961, when it was launched hand-in-glove with the caring souls at the Guardian, it has redefined colonialism by imposing the views of the Islington crowd on
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