August 2025
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Five pieces of doggerel loosely to do with motorised accommodation units in a Scottish context. These were written at various times, provoked by midges, the Covid restrictions, the Great Baillieston-Sturgeon Motorhome scandal, and the dozens of ‘stealth vans’ currently infesting Shetland… The elderly traveller’s farewell to camper vans and motorhomes A camper van’s not for…
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On not-dancing, being a medical sanitation and hygiene executive, and featuring a two-hour playlist of my favourite Northern Soul and Tamla tracks I don’t dance, much to my wife’s annoyance. At least, I don’t dance if I can possibly help it. Sore knees, ignorance of the steps involved in the more obscure Scottish Scottisches, jigs…
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The three freemasons got on the Glasgow train at Reading, sat in front of us and immediately began talking, loudly about their Lodge and how one of them (young, frisky, wearing, of all things a Freemasonry sweat shirt) could progress through the various hierarchies of masonhood from Junior Deacon to Senior Deacon, Warden and everything…
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The softestSupermarket breadMy father’s words:“The quick and dead”Or was it “the whiter” and“The quicker”?The memories mergeThey fade and flicker“Eat it all upYou simply must”Even the blackened Pan bread crustsOn loaves baked freshOr toasted staleEnamel crackedAnd fillings failedFluorideSo it was saidLoch Katrine’s water, LeadFrom ancient pipesAnd better brushing wouldDo what no Gobstopper couldAnd solve our Dental…
