Suddenly A Smoke-Free Year Has Passed

Published by Rick on Tagged Uncategorized

                Yesterday I was walking on Broad Street in Dagenham passing by a newsagent when three kids approached me. I didn’t have to guess what they wanted, but my god, if you’re going to smoke, …



Why Holidays Often Suck, and Why This One Didn’t

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             Until my last marriage, I could only remember taking one, possibly two, holidays with a loved one. One of those was taking a train up from LA to Portland, Oregon at Christmastime, 1998, for a reunio…



An Easier £1.2 Million May Have Never Been Made

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                I love/hate readi

ng “Platell’s People,” a weekly Saturday Daily Mail column/bitchfest by the right-wing, unfunny, and sometimes totally rude Amanda Platell. Most of it is unfo…



Worst Show on TV … and I Watch it Every Week

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                   It was by accident that about a month ago, while killing time in a hotel room in Cardiff, that I turned on ITV just after 7PM and did not know there could be a show so utterly d…



Next week, I’m driving!

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                 “Trains and Boats and Planes” was a Burt Bacharach song recorded by Dionne Warwick and Billy J. Kramer, among others. “Planes, Trains, & Automobiles” was a Steve Martin/John Candy …



Jesus Came Back To Tell The Bunny Where To Hide The Eggs

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                  “On the third day he rose from the dead,” so it says in The Apostles’ Creed, and every year since that well-documented event which may or may not have happened, we have celebrate…



Just GOING To Las Vegas Is a Big Enough Gamble

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                   It’s been almost exactly four years since the last time I was in Las Vegas, Nevada, and what I saw then was distressing, but with a credit crunch having taken over, and the city…



Not this year (but a one in 30 chance I’m wrong)

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            I felt the chances of a

repeat championship for San Francisco in 2011 were slim several weeks ago, and their stumbling performance in their first two games against their bitter rival LA Dodgers p…



Beck Sees the Signs, Why Doesn’t Anyone Else?

Published by Rick on Tagged Uncategorized

                  And here I was all set to write about another polemic from the Daily Mail on the raunchiness of Rihanna’s latest hit, “S&M (Come On),” and the message it sends to the yo…



Girl Power My Ass (or arse, if you will)

Published by Rick on Tagged Uncategorized

                When The Spice Girls hit in the mid-90’s, a Girl Power label was attached to their fame, as their prefabricated dross was to be considered the beginning of some movement. “I’ll tell you…