“Football’s staying home,” proclaims this morning’s Sun. Like most newspapers, it leads on UEFA’s challenge to FIFA’s proposal to allow private investors to buy a stake in a company responsible for running and marketing competitions including the World Cup. As I write, the Asian Football Confederation has joined the opposition. So, by the time you read this, Gianni Infantino’s proposal may already have been kicked into touch—rather like the ill-fated European Super League fiv

Where is that niche only you can fill? I came across a fascinating article in this morning’s business section of The Times about the success of Toby Carvery. This is not an establishment I would normally frequent—except that one of our daughters, for some unaccountable reason, is a regular patron, and from time to time she takes us in tow. The attraction is that you can pile your plate as high as you like with sprouts, carrots, mash and roast potatoes—everything, in fact, exc

Quite often I glance at my Garmin watch simply to check the time, only for it to insist on telling me something else. And so it was on Wednesday evening as I watched the England v Argentina semi-final. How long could we hold out? What was the time? But Garmin had other ideas:“Try to relax!” Then came: “8.30 pm — 1 hr 48 mins.” My digital adviser was informing me that, since 8.30 pm, I had been showing elevated stress for about one hour and 48 minutes. Then: “–13.” This was th

“Tired of the heat?” Well, yes. “Then buy our amazing cooling device, designed by NASA engineers. It can cool a room in 90 seconds!” Over the last few weeks, this advert has kept appearing, invariably on YouTube. And, of course, it is a fake. The reference to “NASA engineers” is something of a giveaway. And if this device really is so effective, why isn’t it on sale in our supermarkets and electrical stores? The problem for the unwary is that the Advertising Standards Authori

So what will we be apologising for in 50 years' time, even 100 years? I’m hugely proud of my grandmother, Edith Vaughan, who died of hyperthyroidism 20 years before I was born; she was just 39 years old. During the Great War she worked as a munitions worker and, although a staunch Wesleyan Methodist, she became pregnant at just 19 years of age. We have little information as to the father – except that he was probably a married man. For the birth she was sent 40 miles away to