Saturday, 25th October 2008: the day I beat Ron Hill. Mind you I’m not sure Ron was trying. For him the Standish Trail Race was just a walk in the park, a mere 10k. Moreover he was still recovering from his 70th birthday party the night before! Sadly Ron died this week, at the age of 82. Most people, I guess, will know him more from his eponymous sporstwear brand. I myself refuse to run in any other socks than the legendary Hilly’s, For Ron used his PhD in textile che

It’s the Jimmy Saville question: how did they get away with it for so long? This morning’s newspapers are dominated by Prince William’s outrage. The Daily Mail is typical: WILLIAM; BBC LIES RUINED MY MOTHER’S LIFE. The fact that Martin Bashir’s now-discredited interview with Diane, Princes of Wales, took place 25 years ago is neither here nor there. His deceit and lies are now exposed along with the total failure of the BBC, even its eventual Director-General, to uncove

Should I lay hands on my internet router? That’s the spiritual battle for today. It’s there on my desk, just alongside my keyboard –its irritatingly bright red light telling me what I already know. I am offline, still – with all the inconvenience that entails. I will spare you the wretched story of how we failed to go fibre. In a word, Jacqui – quite rightly, I now concede – refused to allow the BT engineers to disfigure our house. Which means three days later, we ar

I had no choice but to enter the Gents at the end of the car park. It was to change my life, a bit. I recalled this epiphany some 30 years ago in a conversation this week with one of my daughters. We were talking about the furore caused by the resignation note left by a cleaner for her boss. You will probably be aware of the story – it appeared right across the media, how Julie Cousins walked out of her job as a cleaner for HSBC after 35 years. It seems that her sudden