A compendium of musical delights by Alan and Margaret Ashworth
WE left Nigel Molesworth at the end of the first St Custard’s book, Down With Skool, a brilliant and sardonic evocation of life as a prep school boarder and an instant best-seller … Continue readingThe Molesworth Cronickles: Part 2
FOR almost a century Marmite, which I first wrote about here, has been a byword for clever marketing. The first significant advertising campaign began in the 1930s with the emphasis on the … Continue readingMy mate Marmite Part 2
A FEW days ago a front-page puff in the Times yelled: ‘My drinking problem – how I solved it’ accompanied by a picture of a seriously glammed-up Esther Walker, also known as Mrs … Continue readingConfessions of Mrs Coren, problem drinker
Last week’s column with its mention of bad-mannered cattle prompted DEREK REYNOLDS to send this pen-portrait of a real countryman. MY LANDLORD Max has been a local man for all his 70 … Continue readingFarmer Max, old-school countryman
BETWEEN 1960 and 1962, my Saturday mornings followed an unchanging pattern. My father’s mother would arrive on the bus and we would walk a mile or so to the Regent … Continue readingSaturday Morning Fever
DURING a train journey from Preston to London and back last week I noticed that there seemed to be a lot of swans around. In particular a lake north of … Continue readingSwanupmanship
IT WAS in 1939 that Nigel Molesworth, the ‘goriller of 3B’ and the ‘Curse of St Custard’s’, first saw the light of day in Punch magazine. He cast a jaundiced eye over … Continue readingThe Molesworth Cronickles
NEWSPAPERS used to be a lot more fun than they are now. Do you remember Joyce McKinney, the former Miss Wyoming accused in 1978 of using mink-lined handcuffs to kidnap and … Continue readingWhen news was fun
IN a previous column I waxed lyrical about the joy of anchovies, expecting a deluge of opprobrium. It never arrived, with most readers sharing my enthusiasm for the little salty fish and its by-products. … Continue readingMy mate Marmite
This week I am handing over the first section of the column to HARRY HOPKINS. I’VE coined a phrase which sums up my whole approach to growing stuff: ‘foolish gardening’. I … Continue readingTen left-field ways to make your garden grow