Blogs

Sandown was so wet on the 2nd Feb that all Hurdle races were cancelled so no race for Rio! We are looking at a race that may suit on the 15th also at Sandown, so fingers crossed for the weather. Norway was fantastic. Northern Lights, Ice Hotel, Dog Sledding, we crammed a lot into 5 days. Went to Tromso and Alta in the north of Norway. Would highly recommend it!

I'm starting this blog in the hope that I'll be able to keep it up. It's not that I’m the type of person who starts something and then quickly gives up. On the contrary, I’m a persistent character who, once he starts something, will go all out to keep it up. And I do, in fact, have a Japan-based blog that, despite coming up against many hurdles, I have kept up for more than five years. The problem is that I live in China, and the Chinese...

I'm starting this blog in the hope that I'll be able to keep it up. It's not that I’m the type of person who starts something and then quickly gives up. On the contrary, I’m a persistent character who, once he starts something, will go all out to keep it up. And I do, in fact, have a Japan-based blog that, despite coming up against many hurdles, I have kept up for more than five years. The problem is that I live in China, and the Chinese...

I am often asked what is the ideal length of a piece of prose to post on here - and the answer is 1500 to 2000 words. If your piece is longer then I suggest that you break it up into sections and post it in bits. You can get away with 3000 words - but it will inevitably suffer from fewer reads and anything over that taxes the patience of the Editors!

This is a story about possession, obsession and the search for perfection. Nina Sayers (played by Natalie Portman) is all of these things and a bit more as well. Her life is ballet and is being relived vicariously through her mother Erica (Barbara Hershey) an ex-ballet dancer. In a telling exchange Nina reminds her that she was 28 when she gave birth to her, so her claims of having to give up ballet…In a prior scene Erica offers her a slice of...

Better get over it. Snowdrop shoots are sprouting round about in gardens- also in my garden. Harbingers of Spring- we are getting closer with each day that passes.

Well hes now entered in a big race at Sandown on Saturday. However, I will be in Norway! But the lads will be there cheering him on. He's up against much more experienced horses and the best I can hope for is a place. But you never know! I will try to listen to the commentary whilst away. I'll be on some kind of glacier somewhere in the middle of bloody nowhere trying to get a signal! But thats okay, looking forward to the trip. Come on Rio!

The stories we tell ourselves tell us who we are. ‘I got George Bush elected…it wasn’t strictly legal, so I don’t want to talk about it.’ ‘I don’t want to kiss some old hag.’ David Seigal aged around 74, says of his wife Jackie 43. ‘She’s like another child.’ Jackie: ‘Seven [kids] by birth and one inherited.’ ‘My husband told me he was going to trade me in for two twenty year olds when I got to 40.’ ‘When I grew up I never knew you could have a...

The snooker was on TV and this kept getting put back until the session was finished. And at one point I doubted it ever would. My partner couldn’t stay awake to watch the film. She asked me the next day what it was about, and in a classical Freudian slip, I said , ‘trust’. Trust is the Janus face of doubt. Fling in the fairy dust of a little Catholic faith and, trust me, we have combustion. The best storylines are often reducible to a single...

Glen Campbell is the Doris Day of Country and Western, or indeed American Music. He’s the ‘Rhinestone Cowboy’ who came from a humble background, musically a child prodigy that could make a guitar and most other instruments sing and his voice was good too. He’d the hunky wholesome good looks that spoke of apple pie and living the good life for Jesus. Sure he got lucky. It’s not enough to be talented. Even Doris Day before she was a virgin got...