One of the first casualties of parenthood for me has been the ability to commit – really commit – to watching an entire TV series.
I start off with the best intentions, but after episode 2 or 3, my ‘live’ viewing pretty soon switches to ‘catch up’ and not long after that to the deleted bin as I realise that other time pressures have left me with too much to catch up on and not enough time to catch up in.
Last weekend, taking advantage of the glorious summer weather, we decided spontaneously to pack up the car and head over to the Isle of Wight on the ferry.
I hadn’t visited there since a school Geography field trip to Sandown many years ago and I wondered how much had changed in the intervening decades.
During my time in Australia, I became an Australian citizen, thus making me a dual national and the proud owner of two passports to boot.
At my citizenship ceremony, us new Aussies got to sing ‘our’ national anthem (‘Advance Australia Fair’) for the first time – not as part some kind of test (“Get it right or there’s no certificate for you mate”), but more as a celebration of our newly adopted nation.
“Bowie’s dead”.
It was one of those moments, a bit like the deaths of Elvis Presley or John Lennon, when I’m sure millions of people all around the world couldn’t quite believe what they were seeing or reading.
“But how can this be?”….. “He only just released a new album” ….. “I didn’t even know he was ill”.
This Saturday evening in Hollywood, the funeral takes place of Ian Kilmister, a 70 year old man from Staffordshire.
(If the name sounds unfamiliar, you would probably know him better as just plain Lemmy).
In a fitting tribute to the man and his maverick approach to life, the funeral is being streamed live to enable his many fans around the world to be part of the occasion and raise a final glass to his memory.
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