December 31, 2009

Today I’m whining about wine

I might enjoy the odd tipple or three - but I’ll be the first to admit I am no Oz Clarke, thank God, but the current state of the wine market leaves me a little, erm – off. Admittedly I am basing my criticism on the weekly shop at Tesco – but as they [...]

December 23, 2009

Snowbound horror

Rob Towers has been engulfed by at least 5 inches of snow this weekend. In an era when even a centimetre of snow seems to paralyse the country, this is surely life-threatening. And after a couple of hours flicking through the daytime television channels I can confirm that this is indeed so. [...]

December 22, 2009

Getting sick of TV chefs

Tonight, I have the chance to see Jamie Oliver’s family Christmas. And if that doesn’t induce indigestion, nausea and vomiting, I can overindulge on yet more vacuous celebrity cooking with a festive theme straight afterwards on Gordon Ramsey’s F word. And this is just one day after I couldn’t help but [...]

December 19, 2009

How does the snowplough driver get to work?

spent a great deal of my time on the M4 and M25 yesterday. And as I enjoyed my close-up view of this country’s total inability to cope with a couple of inches of snow and waited patiently to be rescued by a snowplough, I began to wonder. How exactly does the guy who [...]

December 18, 2009

Snow Use Grumbling

It’s all gone very festive outside Rob Towers. There is snow on the ground. Not a huge amount it has to be said – but certainly the white, scenic carpet so beloved by Christmas card designers. This morning I had the dubious pleasure of accompanying my dog across some fields that [...]

December 17, 2009

Big Brother is Having a Happy Christmas

1984 may now be twenty five years ago – but that nightmare Orwellian vision is closer to the truth now than even George Orwell can have envisaged in his darker moments. I didn’t know whether to laugh or cry the other day when I heard about the naked scanner being trialled at Manchester Airport.
In [...]

December 16, 2009

Led Zeppelin don’t rock top gear

Well fancy that – Led Zeppelin played a loud and boring role on Top Gear three decades before Jeremy Clarkson made political incorrectness de rigueur on the programme. Apparently according to news leaked by the BBC today, legendary rockers-to-be Led Zeppelin were somewhat dull and unconvincing – and the pretentious BBC radio hacks would [...]

December 14, 2009

Bah humbug - Xmas!

Call me a greedy old scrooge, but I seem to have been planning my xmas this year since mid-November around the table and wine rack. It must be something to do with the diet I have been loosely sticking to which makes meat and alcohol the spawn of the devil in an effort to [...]

December 14, 2009

And the winner is….

The telephone companies. A curious thing happened this weekend. I found myself watching television – but apparently I needed a telephone to make the experience complete. On both Saturday night and Sunday night the BBC and ITV were urging me to pick up the phone and vote for my favourite. [...]

December 14, 2009

Father Christmas lives in the Internet

There was a time when I believed that Father Christmas lived somewhere near the North Pole. Nowadays I think he lives somewhere in my computer. The logic behind this theory is impeccable. Every single Christmas present you could possibly desire is now available at the touch of a button.
You don’t believe me? [...]