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 health benefits of dog ownership are well known, companionship being the front runner of a very long and therapeutic list of benefits. Dogs are fiercely loyal. They offer undiluted affection. They are dependable and consistent. Dogs can be cuddled. They are warm. Unable to use toilets, dogs need to be walked, thereby the human…
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…
Professions (jobs) come with fairly defined hierarchies. The best paid (rock stars, entrepreneurs…) The most esteemed (surgeons, judges…) The most worthy (teachers, carers…) The most admired (sports stars, actors…) The bravest (soldiers, deep sea divers…) And the most difficult? (bomb-disposal expert, stand-up comedian…) No doubt, you can add your own profession/job to the above and…
The stress of going away. We’ve all been there. A unique feeling of general anxiety and occasional terror. Passports, turning the oven off, enough pairs of underpants, deodorant, water-proofs? Do you think it will rain? We’re going to Scotland. It could be cold… Sun cream? Like most people, our trip is the first in two…
Pressure and how it impacts on performance is an impossible thing to accurately quantify or control although there is no lack of trying and well paid ‘professionals’ on hand to assist. With Andy Murray, who I would argue is the greatest British sportsman of the last 50 years, our tennis appetite has been adequately provided…
My latest venture to arrest the career oblivion visited on me by lockdown is to create an audio version of my book, Eclipsed. The story of how my eldest son out-gunned my best efforts in show-business before his teenage years. He is Tom Holland, the actor best known nowadays as the latest incarnation of Spider-Man….
Us human beings – we like to big ourselves up. We embellish our roles in life and exaggerate our achievements to curry influence and gain respect. But very few people have genuinely important jobs. I mean jobs that really matter. When Nikki had an ectopic pregnancy, she was rushed in to an emergency procedure. When…
