Are you a hotel buffet bandit?
Last week, on a Swedish train somewhere between Linkoping and Mjolby, as I struggled to open a bag of cheesy…
I want to see a doctor – not do another NHS survey
Nye Bevan did not make old bones, and perhaps that’s just as well. According to a recent British Social Attitudes…
Why I’m happy being a Brother
As a Charterhouse resident, I have a new honorific
Elf and safety: are child protection guidelines killing Santa’s appeal?
Are child protection guidelines killing Santa’s appeal?
Open alms: how I came to live on charity
How I came to live on charity
The pernicious creep of Big Nanny
The creep of nannying announcements
The untimely death of the landline
The premature death of the home phone
The difficult decisions that come with downsizing
The difficulties of downsizing
Why cash is still king to me
In defence of hard cash
What should we put in our time capsule of the plague year?
What to include in a memory box of the plague year?
The power of cold showers
Why I’ve warmed to cold showers
The infantilism of Advent calendars for grown-ups
Anything goes with Advent calendars
Why I’ve given up on handbags
How I gave up an unnecessary habit
A death, live-streamed: my husband’s Skype funeral
The strange experience of my husband’s Skype funeral
Why are so many of my elderly friends in denial about death?
Here’s a cheerful thought: we are all going to die. Some of my friends are under 70 but most, now…
In defence of pocket money
Our grandchildren are penniless. They have pretty much everything their hearts desire and they have parents with wallets full of…
Young recycling zealots are talking rubbish
Church attendances may be falling, but there’s a new religion in town: recycling. Its followers are devout and full of…
What I’ve learned from 20 years without a TV
In the summer of 1999 I did something radical. Spurred on by my husband’s universal loathing of television I took…
