I recently buried my uncle Alex as his only living relative - the only people there were the RC priest and me. I'm not at all religious, but the priest did it very nicely - reminisced a bit abou… (View Post)

For balance, here's Charles talking to the Sinn Fein leadership - suggests a deftness which for me outweighs any irritation about leaky pens. They're very good too. https://twitter.com/ciar… (View Post)

One of the pending items in the "new" government's in-tray is a Defra consultation on mandatory labelling of means of production of meat (e.g. chicken), so people can make informed cho… (View Post)

Agreed - personal graciousness goes a long way in making people reassess how they categorise you. At a trivial level, I remember failing to recognise Martin McGuinness at a Sinn Fein conference where… (View Post)

I'm very glad to hear it. I wonder if the emphasis on "front line staff" is leading to inefficient savings in administrative staff - a unit may be more effective with 4 nurses and an a… (View Post)