One of the things I missed most whilst living in Australia was being able to read British newspapers on a daily basis.
Sure they have some good newspapers in Australia, but for me, nothing quite matches the extraordinary diversity, vibrancy and sheer inventiveness of the British press.
Despite the fact I have been back in the UK for nearly 4 years now, I still keep in regular touch with all manner of news from down under: general news, sporting news, celebrity news, popular culture news….
But every so often a piece of Aussie news finds its way onto my radar which strikes a particular chord and reminds me vividly of some aspect of the time I spent there.
As a child, growing up in the UK, I always found Christmas to be a magical time of the year. However, when I moved away to live in Australia, somehow the season lost much of its specialness for me.
The last week or so has been somewhat momentous for me.
Firstly, my humble blog (with a little bit of a push from the excellent Viva Lewes) made it past the 5,000 hits mark a few days ago.
I have a theory about supermarkets.
OK, it’s probably not a particularly robust theory and can probably be disproven by the nation’s Marketing Maestros and Dukes of Data, but it is a theory nevertheless.
Thursday September 27th. A pretty bog standard day for most of us, but not so for many of Britain’s football mad schoolboys.
The reason? Today was the day that Topps launched their 2012/13 season ‘Match Attax’ into newsagents and shops around the nation.
In recent years, the very word ‘Blackberry’ has become synonymous with a certain type of ultra-important, busy-busy lifestyle in which one just has to be on call 24/7.
But it wasn’t always thus.
After last night’s Paralympics closing ceremony and following August’s Olympics extravaganza, the summer party is sadly over for Britain and the hangover begins.
In a rather clumsy segue, (and as those that know me will confirm), I too have always struggled with hangovers, often with a scale and ferocity completely out of kilter with the night before.
Strictly speaking, this is not a brand I have missed, or even thought about at all over the two decades I have been away from the UK.
In fact, upon returning and discovering an Argos branch still plying its trade in downtown Lewes, my initial thoughts were more along the lines of “I can’t believe this dinosaur is still breathing”.
Over the last few years, any holidays back to the UK have usually taken place during the summer months, as we hope for a bit of sunshine to brighten up those long hours of daylight.
One abiding memory of those holidays has been the lunchtimes spent around my mum’s kitchen table, as it groans under the weight of the vast array of food she has prepared to ‘keep us going’.
But when it came to drinks, I always found myself drawn towards a rather tall elegant green bottle, lurking in the recesses of her fridge, cunningly named Bottle Green.
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