Category: That Reminds Me . . .

WHAT must it have been like to play alongside the greatest rock guitarist of all time? You won’t find out from Noel Redding’s book Are You Experienced? Of all the tacky, … Continue readingHendrix’s bleating bassist

MY criminal career was quite possibly the shortest in history. At the age of five I used to walk to school in Nelson, Lancashire, and was often joined by a … Continue readingMy life of crime

ON the rare occasions when work failed to intervene, my Saturday morning treat in the early 1980s was Tiswas, ostensibly a children’s show but with more than enough hilarious moments to … Continue readingTiswas, anarchy on the TV

IN a recent column I described shamefacedly how I drove into a Lancashire ravine while drunk, and that brought back memories of a hair-raising yet oft-repeated trip to the Timanfaya National Park … Continue readingA ride through lava land

I HAVE written previously about some of the wonderful and talented people I worked with in Fleet Street, including Gordon Greig, Lynda Lee-Potter, Nigel Dempster and Keith Waterhouse. Obviously, the Daily Mail also had its share of … Continue readingHeroes and villains of Fleet Street

I HAVE already described here the simple ceremony which marked my marriage to Margaret 32 years ago. My first wedding was a more lavish affair. Although she had been brought up in … Continue readingMiracle of the wedding wine

AMONG the books I have most enjoyed recently is Frank Sinatra Has a Cold, a collection of magazine essays by the American New Journalism pioneer Gay Talese. The title piece beautifully … Continue readingThe Witches of Femail

HALF a century has passed since I took my driving test but I still remember it clearly, in stark contrast to what I might or might not have done in … Continue readingConfessions of a drunken driver

A PARAGRAPH in the Times sports pages last week about the ‘British’ tennis star Emma Raducanu and the reasons for her slide down the rankings finally acknowledged what has been whispered about … Continue readingTennis dads from hell

To many readers, PG Wodehouse is synonymous with Jeeves and Wooster but little else (apart from maybe the Blandings books). However there are countless gems to be mined among the … Continue readingBeyond Jeeves and Wooster: PG Wodehouse’s golf stories