Showing 1 - 10 of 56
Hedgehoppers in search of good news
Roger Crutchley, Published on 01/02/2026
» Being the very first day of February it would have been nice if there was some good news worth celebrating, but unfortunately nothing immediately springs to mind. Cheerful news is an increasingly rare commodity these days. It all seems to be gloom and doom and hardly portends a joyful 2026. It can get a bit wearying grappling with news reports featuring contradictions, cover-ups and cock-ups, often accompanied by half-truths, prevarications and porky pies. But this is the world we now live in.
Let's hope 2026 is not too amazing
Roger Crutchley, Published on 04/01/2026
» Well here we are on the fourth day of a brand new year. I trust everyone is holding up well after the festivities because it can be quite gruelling pretending to behave in a jovial fashion if you are not feeling jovial at all.
A word that has me at sixes and sevens
Roger Crutchley, Published on 09/11/2025
» I try to keep up with the ever-evolving English language but after seeing the buzzwords provided by Dictionary.com this week I fear I am being left way behind.
The toothpaste which created TV history
Roger Crutchley, Published on 28/09/2025
» Last week marked the 70th anniversary of television advertisements in Britain. For years the BBC had been the only TV network in Britain and no ads were allowed. But in the mid-1950s along came Independent Television (ITV) which was launched to create competition, the big difference being that it was permitted to finance itself by showing advertisements.
A 10-day journey across snowy Iran
Roger Crutchley, Published on 22/06/2025
» Watching events unfold in the Middle East last week sparked memories of the brief time I spent in Iran a long time ago in more peaceful times. In February 1969 I travelled across the northern part of the nation during an overland trip from London to New Delhi. The country was still run by the Shah who was overthrown 10 years later in the Iranian Revolution.
Thai police officer becomes the bee's knees
Roger Crutchley, Published on 20/04/2025
» The feel-good story this week involves a most unlikely hero, a Thai policeman. It is not often that the local gendarmerie are the subject of uplifting news, but that was the case in the Northeastern province of Nakhon Phanom when an alert policeman rescued a woman from a swarm of attacking bees.
Slow horses playing a strange game
Roger Crutchley, Published on 02/03/2025
» Last week's account in PostScript of the painfully slow horse I bet on at the Epsom Derby back in the Dark Ages prompted a reader to enquire if I had seen the British television series Slow Horses. I'm pleased to say I have and for those who are unfamiliar with the production I should point out that it has nothing do with the equine world but is an absorbing British spy thriller laced with dark humour.
The hippo, the pumpkin and the haggis
Roger Crutchley, Published on 10/11/2024
» From the moment Thailand's celebrity pygmy hippo, Moo Deng predicted Donald Trump would triumph in the US election it was all over for the Democrats and Kamala Harris. Their fate had been sealed by the taste buds of the megastar mammal from Chon Buri.
The day Sukhumvit almost sunk
Roger Crutchley, Published on 29/09/2024
» Reading about the extensive flooding in the North and Northeast got me thinking about the worst inundations experienced in Bangkok. It was probably back in 1983 when much of the city was underwater for several weeks. However one that really affected me was a few years later in 1986 after a huge storm had left the eastern part of Bangkok awash.
When Bangkok bid for the Olympics
Roger Crutchley, Published on 28/07/2024
» It's been 100 years since the last Paris Olympics which was dramatically portrayed in the stirring 1981 film Chariots of Fire. I can still picture that opening scene with the British athletes running along the beach to the sounds of that Vangelis anthem. It's hard to believe that was made 43 years ago. If this year's Olympics are even half as exciting as the 1924 event it will be an achievement.