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 →A Quick Pitt Stop
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 – when Sainsbury’s opened their first self-service ‘supermarket’
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 – 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 doesn’t adhere to the official social guidelines and the government intervenes on behalf of those it doesn’t 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 ‘John Craven’s Newsround’ 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 ‘open’. 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
Continue reading →'High' Church.
America is the land of opportunity if you have a desire to establish your own church. No other country is so relaxed about ministries that amount to just the one true believer. They even have a tax system
Continue reading →A Loose Screw
Screw David Cameron and George Osborne. Screw Theresa May and Iain Duncan Smith. Screw Yvette Cooper, Jeremy Corbyn, Liz Kendall and Andy Burnham. Screw Labour, the Liberal Democrats and the Conservatives. Screw the Commons and the Lords.
Continue reading →Toki Pona with grilled asparagus and a dill sauce…
No, I’m not about to give you the recipe. Toki Pona isn’t the latest tasteless but quick growing Vietnamese fish foisted on us by desperate supermarket fish finger suppliers. It’s a language; a remarkably constrained language, and
Continue reading →The BBC on the naughty step.
I’ve been taking a look at the Foxes that John Wittingdale has chosen to put in charge of the British Broadcasting Henhouse, otherwise known as the BBC. Rather more dogs than vixens, as it happens, so lets take
Continue reading →The Law of the Jungle
Wilf Batty isn’t a name from the past that provokes instant recognition. Most probably have no idea who he was or what he did. Well, he was a farmer in the Mawbanna district of Tasmania, and what he did
Continue reading →The Genes Genie
Parents can be a hard act to live up to. If they’ve been an immense success in their chosen field, their children entering the same field means they have to either surpass the particular parent’s achievements or
Continue reading →Class and the Common Girl.
Reading one of Moor Larkin’s excellent posts the other night, an excerpt from the Pollard report caught my eye. I had seen it before, but in isolation; now I was reading it
Continue reading →End of the Peer Show at the Maison des Crétins.
Alas poor Buttifant*! The fashion police have busted him.
On Sunday he was a mere coke snorting, tart romping Peer, barely distinguishable from his colleagues – by Monday The Sun had played their master stroke and
Continue reading →"The Daily Speculation" and "The Alarmist Times".
I’m starting to count the number of times that the early morning news contains the words ‘The Prime Minister will tell business leaders today’ or ‘George Osborne is expected to announce’; I’m counting as a means of
Milk Marketing.
A reader of this parish, a blissfully content new grandfather, which makes a change from his usual curmudgeonly, contrarian, argumentative self, in between making coochy-coo noises and blowing bubbles at his new granddaughter, decided to do something practical