It happens every year and it starts around May/June time and every year it puts a dent in my mood. It begins with an email from my accountants requesting my year-end financial records: my income, outgoings, invoices, receipts, bank statements and anything else that exposes my lack of organisational skills… This is an Email that…
There are many things considered essential for life or a successful life at least. Good health might head up this list, which the majority of people are lucky enough to enjoy and yet so many of us take it for granted or else squander it with bad choices. On a more granular level, oxygen comes…
It is said that mimicry is the highest form of flattery – unless it happens to be identity theft that is, as has happened to me recently but has only just come to light – a combination of the thief’s cunning and the hectic lives of the Hollands. As a family, we are well used…
The affectionate phrase, “the doctor will see you now” is under some pressure with doctors taking their services on-line to protect themselves from Covid and I expect with repercussions for many years to come. Because I am in good health and I see my doctor very rarely, this decision has not troubled me. However, I…
We are familiar with adrenalin junkies. We see them online doing very stupid things. Feats that normal people marvel and laugh at in equal measure. People leaping between buildings or base jumping or diving off cliffs… And as compelling as these feats are, I always fret because having survived, they are likely to seek out…
Of course I knew this day was coming. After all it does come every year and at around this time. And yet, as happens when the clocks move backwards or forwards it still took me unawares this year. It’s a sad day I suppose – it marks the passing of another year and the beginning…
Regular readers will know that I am prone to embellishments and particularly when it comes to fellow show biz ‘stars’ who I have worked with down the years. There’s my brush with Anne Hathaway or my fortuitous liaison with a certain Janet Jackson without which my eldest son might never have happened and I would…
Three things have occurred recently that are noteworthy and are all indicators of my age. For a while now I have observed people paying for things using their phone and rather irrationally it has always irked me. Young people in the main and fewer people of my age who I notice have a smug air…
Just like sun tans, holiday romances and/or friendships rarely endure. They’re usually things of their time and place and they can’t easily be replicated or prolonged. Although not always, as happened to us some 18 years ago on a disappointingly cold all-inclusive holiday in Turkey when we encountered a couple with four very young children…
There is probably an adage with the gist that it’s valuable to try something new and for many and obvious reasons: new lessons, experiences, awakenings, synapses, self-esteem, novelty, awareness… And so it is this month when I visit the Old Bailey – the most famous court in the land with one of the world’s oldest…
