The Time Bubble

I am sure I am not the only one sitting around post-Christmas with a stack of gift cards wondering how/ what to spend them on. Before I commence the inevitable rant, let me just qualify that I am in no way having a go at the kindly folk who give gift cards as presents. After all, in principle, they are a good idea. They are the perfect half-way house between gifts and cash. The problem with gifts? How do you really know what to get someone? It applies to people of all ages. Grandad likes his allotment so let's buy him a trowel. Even though he's got a perfectly good one already. The kids were into Lego last we heard so let's buy them some of that. No - that's no good - Lego is old hat now and has been superceded by Minecraft. What about a nice bottle of wine for Dad? What? He doesn't like Malbec? Well how were we to know? Fussy, ungrateful bastard! And so on and so forth... What about cash? Well it seems a bit crass doesn't it. Besides how do we know they w...

The subject of today's blog entry, as the title suggests, is the humble potato. At first glance this might appear a somewhat mundane topic. What on earth can he say about potatoes to fill a few hundred words, I hear you ask? Well, quite a lot. believe me! As a member of the potato buying public, I have become increasingly frustrated of late by the ever declining size and quality of my potatoes. As an old-fashioned chap at heart, I like to keep a lot of the traditions I grew up with alive and one of those is cooking the great British Sunday roast. Sundays aren't what they were when I was a lad. Much of what made Sunday special has now gone. You can't even listen to the Top 40 any more - not that you would want to considering the crap that's in it these days. Radio One in their infinite wisdom have moved it to Fridays. Bit that's another story. But no-one can stop me making my Sunday roast. Except when we have it on Monday, which is quite often, because Claire o...

Panel shows aren't always my thing (especially if they involve Jimmy Carr) but you can't go wrong with Frank Skinner. Consequently, I'm a big fan of Room 101, currently airing on BBC1 on Friday nights. So much so, that I've been thinking about what topic I might choose in the unlikely event I ever find myself invited to take part in an episode. As someone hurtling at high speed towards the Victor Meldrew phase of life, I find there are no shortage of things to irritate me on a daily basis. However there is one thing that is currently irking me more than everything else and so here we go. My topic is... Downsizing I don't mean making people redundant. Although undoubtedly an unpleasant experience for many, in my case it was a completely liberating one. No, I'm talking about the disgraceful habit of manufacturers of sneakily reducing the sizes of their food products and hoping we won't notice. We've got 10 Jaffa cakes in a pack instead of 12. Multip...

Here I am in Evesham. Yes, I've finally taken the plunge and left Bicester after 26 years. I've been here just a week and have so much to talk about, I hardly know where to start. Let's talk about the town first. What a lovely place it has proven to be! First of all there is the river. It runs in a horseshoe shape through the town and you can walk all the way alongside it, as I have done so three times during the first week. The day after we arrived, we walked all the way along on what was a beautiful late summer's evening. I was reminded more than a little of walking along the river in Oxford, from the Head Of The River pub, with rowers everywhere. The path alongside the river is sandy and lined with mature trees, similar to the main path through Christchurch Meadows. There are various play parks, tennis courts, a cricket pitch and all sorts of other things along the way. Each time I have been along there it has been a hive of activity, with people everywhere enj...

Next Wednesday will be a landmark moment in my life. For it marks the day, some 26 years after my arrival in Bicester, that I make my departure. Looking at it another way, that's precisely 9,595 days. I found a website to calculate that for me in case you think I was sitting there like some saddo with a spreadsheet or calculator working out. Which I probably would have been if it hadn't been for the website. 9,595 days sounds huge and it certainly has been a long time. I was 21 then, I'm 47 now. Frank Sinatra sang that when he was 21 it was a very good year. For me it certainly was, as 47 is shaping up to be. The years between have varied in quality but there can be no denying there have been a lot of them. Suddenly I appear to be nudging middle-age. Here's what Bicester looked like when I arrived...has it really been that long? We've established, then, that I've given Bicester the best years of my life. So what has Bicester given me? It has given m...

August is shaping up to be a busy month. Not only is it the school holidays but we are also moving house at the end of the month. I'm not sure of the exact date - we are still waiting on an exchange of contracts which should have happened last week. More on that when I have it. In addition, I release a new book at the end of this month so thought this would be an ideal opportunity to let you know how I came up with the idea. Having written three spin-offs over the past couple of years, I sat down at the start of this year with the feeling it was time for a new Time Bubble book. If you've read the first three you'll recall that the third book tied up most of the loose ends and brought what was intended to be a trilogy to a close. But the spin-offs raised new questions, plus there were some things at the end of the third book that I still felt needed exploring. I want to avoid spoilers here so all I will say is that at the end of the third book a major change occurred t...

Here's a thing that's been bugging me for a while now. I've got a pretty decent size fridge in my place. Yet the space within is constantly at a premium. I get back from Sainsbury's and I'm struggling to squeeze everything in. Yeah, yeah, I hear you thinking, he loves his meat and cheese etc, he shouldn't buy so much. Thing is, it's not those things that are crowding out the fridge. My problem is that I'm a permanent shelf down before I've even started. There is just no room whatsoever on the top shelf of the fridge, and I'll tell you why. It's because of all of the sauces. Now I'm not just talking about the standard sauces we all have. Most of us have a bottle of ketchup in there and a bottle of salad cream. My kids adore ketchup and it doesn't take long to get through a bottle. No, the problem is all the other stuff. Take mayonnaise for example. How many different types of that have we ended up with? There's standard H...

Soap fans were up in arms last night at the news that popular character, Jason Ayres, is to be sensationally axed from long-running ITV show, Bicester . Jason Ayres has played the role since the very first episode, and is the only original character left from when it began in May 1991. Dubbed the "Ken Barlow" of Bicester due to his longevity in the role, it seems inconceivable that the show's producers would want to get rid of him. Ayres has come a long way since he first burst on to our screens as a fresh-faced, idealistic 21-year-old, back on that balmy spring day when Cher was at No. 1 with The Shoop Shoop Song.  At the centre of many of the show's most famous storylines since, the character has been involved in all sorts of drams and scandals. But now, it seems that his story has run it's course. Producers say they are looking for fresh blood in the show and that Ayres had become "tired" in the role. But Ayres hit back at those comments, blamin...

For as long as I can remember, I've loved quiz shows. When I was a kid it was Sale of the Century and Winner Takes All. I loved the gambling element of the latter, with it's betting odds on the answers. As a teenager it was Going For Gold at with Henry Kelly, which I used to watch on my lunch break when I worked for Martins. There have been hundreds of different formats over the years, the nature of which vary considerably, There are those where knowledge is everything e.g. Who Wants to be a Millionaire, to those where the questions play only a minor part in what is largely a game of chance. The dreadful, Babushka, recently broadcast on ITV, is a good example of the latter. I've been around a long time, but I am in no way exaggerating in saying this is the worst "quiz" show I have ever seen. And there have been some shockers. Some don't even bother with questions at all, a prime example being Deal or no Deal. That was quite an interesting concept when it s...

When I was a kid, I would recoil in horror if going for a walk in the countryside was ever suggested. Such an activity was filed firmly under the category of "boring" and something that old people did. Old at that time meaning anyone over the age of forty, a milestone considered truly ancient to a eleven-year-old. My perception was not helped by being hauled off on a twenty-mile walk around the Lake District in my formative years. This is not what you call easing someone gently into the joys of walking. It seriously put me off the whole idea for about three decades. Other than a brief interest in cornfields, during a period of amorous exploration in my late teens, the countryside hasn't held much appeal to me until recently. However, since some trips to the Lake District and other places in recent years, my interest has been rekindled. And fortunately for me. the kids are not averse to walks in the country, as I have eased them gently into the world of public footpath...