Readers in bygone days might have described me as a cad and a bounder. My misdemeanour - having fallen out of love, I have decided to reveal all. My infatuation was not with a person but with what I saw as an altruistic ideal. Discovering otherwise came as a horrible surprise and while we…
A Misunderstanding
There can be little more irresistible than the sight of a baby staring into ones eyes and smiling. At around three months most will look at people’s faces and it is clearly a view they find captivatung. Those early stares are not exclusively directed at their parents. Over the past few weeks I have been stared…
Two Parties and Three Gems from Santa
Over coffee after a long walk a friend described my attitude towards Christmas as ‘bah humbug’. Such a comment would normally go unnoticed; this time it made me think. My mother was a romantic secular Jew who, throughout my childhood, made Christmas a magical event, and so it remains. The exchange of cards and…
Hold Tight!
My knees were at their worst over Christmas 2014. They are better now, but then, walking up and down stairs was very painful. At the time, I was having to navigate two flights of stairs twice a day as I changed trains at Clapham Junction. Pain could be lessened by holding on to the bannisters…
Art Provocateur
There was a time when works of art that others might see as sad or frightening simply left me cold. Well, that all changed a few weeks ago when we visited a Scottish sculpture park. There, two of the installations did what art is supposed to do - they provoked emotions - and the…
Magic Spells Safety
Within minutes of leaving home I realised that something was very wrong. I was on my way to the baker's and while my early-morning brain had ensured I put on my cycling gloves and my cleated shoes, it had made a muddle over my crash helmet. The absence of a chin strap and the feeling…
Not the 10 o’clock Snooze
It is almost two months ago to the day since I had my operation. As is common in men of my age, my prostate had grown uncomfortably large and was in need of a trim. The operation went well, but the immediate post-operative weeks brought some challenging moments when I contracted two bacterial infections that…
Another world
I had been forewarned about the opening scene a few weeks earlier when I bought our tickets. I was about to pay when the smiley face of the man in the box office suddenly turned serious. He looked me in the eyes and with great solemnity delivered a prepared statement: "I should warn you, the…
Lasting impressionist
I was in a world of my own, puzzling over my recent run of form at chess - when playing against Fahar [see Reopening Gambit, Greyhares blog, 28 January 2016] it was most unusual for me to win four games in a row. Suddenly, all became clear; my success was thanks to my bishops and the…
An idea with legs
Those who read Greyhares will know that, when out in public, I am an inveterate chatterer. The content of my chat varies, covering anything from idle chit-chat, to serious debate, to the infamous imparting of unsolicited advice. To these more traditional categories, I have just added a fourth - the 'avuncular chat'. Here, the purpose…
The Joe Collier Blog 