Grombles

Like most first world inhabitants, I use planes more than buses. Actually I never use buses. I use elephants more than buses. But that's not the point of this post. I have probably flown at least once every other month for the past forty years. Say around 500 flights somewhere and back. And on every flight, two things always happen: The captain invites me to enjoy the flight - or hoped I enjoyed it I didn't I loathe flying. First there's the airport. It's a shopping mall preceded by long queues where I'm instructed to take off my belt and shoes to check if they can blow up. Them I'm frisked in case I'm an Islamic terrorist and once again likely to blow up. Once through, I'm assaulted by over-priced shops in which there's nothing I ever want to buy. Gone are the days when you didn't pay duty in airports (unless you are leaving the EU, in which case your booze is cheaper than in the UK, but not as cheap as where you're going). So to avoid...

Did you hear Desert Island Discs on BBC Radio 4 this morning ? Damien Hirst was chatting about his life and the music that inspired him. To be honest I only caught 10 minutes of the show, but it was enough to realise that I knew nothing about his world. Although my home is littered with modern art, none of the art itself is by a 'name' - at least as a far as I am aware. Perhaps when me and the Mrs have shuffled off our mortal coils (what is a 'mortal coil'?) and our kids put our stuff up on ebay, someone somewhere will shriek "it's a Bill Plonkworthy... a genuine Bill Plonkworthy!" and bid a fortune for it along with the 500,000 other twitter followers of said Bill P. Well I've never heard of the Bill Ps that Damien and his fawning interviewer fondly and respectfully name-checked throughout my 10 minutes of casual attention, so I can't claim I was enthralled by the programme, nor did I want to catch the 20 minutes I missed (his choice of music was...