Crossword Blues

A crossword compiler named Moss
Who found himself quite at a loss
When asked, “Why so blue?”
Said, “I haven’t a clue
I’m 2 Down to put 1 Across.”

The Whirly Girl

Retrospective 2021

Executive Summary This year can be summed up with the phrase, “steady as she goes”. Like everyone else in the affluent West, Covid rules continued to curtail our activities. Easing of restrictions in the summer brought hope of a return to the old normal but, as winter set in, the Omicron variant sent us almost…

Too Much Religion?

This poll suggests it’s time to remove bishops from the House of Lords.

Ephemeral Earth Art

This captivating video says it all.

Retrospective 2020

Executive Summary It’s been a funny old year. Mary and I stayed well clear of the Coronavirus but it has obliterated most of the happenings that I would normally be blogging about. I am one of the lucky ones, though. As a pensioner, I don’t have to worry about losing my job or loss of…

Beethoven Meets Van Gogh

Retrospective 2019

Executive Summary It’s been a fairly uneventful 2019 for us on the whole. One more year on the life clock has, presumably, taken its toll but we don’t feel any older than we did 12 months ago so we are not complaining. Our cat, Persephone, is now on regular medication for thyroid and kidney problems…

Retrospective 2018

Executive Summary Mary is still teaching conversational English to elderly Asian women for the WEA, doing volunteer work for Age UK and playing her part as a governor at the local primary school. Phil is enjoying his retirement to the full, writing his music blog, strumming his guitar and pointing his camera at anything that…

Retrospective 2017

Executive Summary Mary continues to work part time for the WEA, teaching English one morning a week, mainly to elderly women of Asian extraction. She has also joined the board of governors for the village primary school. Both occupations have required attendance at training courses and meetings at various times throughout the year. Phil is…

Starman

I started a Haskell course last week. One of this week’s exercises was to write a guessing game called Starman. All the necessary code fragments were provided in the course notes and a complete solution was provided on github. However, in the spirit of learning by doing I re-jigged the program structure a bit. I’m…