Issue 143

..column over the years and regular readers will know it’s a love/hate thing anyway. Regulars will also know that the year drawing to a close always bothers me as my naturally sunny disposition is occluded by the clouds of general dissatisfaction with the state of Christmases past, present and future. (And I’m not a fucking…

Mike’s Pith & Wind cont. Good coffee can make my day. Bad coffee (like bad wine) can leave me confused and depressed. I love tea. Tea is dependable. If I want to be refreshed, especially on a hot, sweaty day, tea is the drink. Iced tea? Love it. Herbal teas? Quite like some of them….

Mike’s Pith & Wind cont. .. smoke. I can’t see that having any long-term effect. I think kids generally see smoking as a measure of maturity and sophistication for one thing, and if parents and oldies are agin it, it must be especially worth doing for another. Maybe that’s the clue. Maybe it’s time for…

Dick’s Toolbox cont. ..too expensive to make. And they were still seriously, seriously good. So when I returned this year, once again with Elizabeth, to find ‘For Rent’ signs in the window and the view inside of an overturned table and scattered newspapers on the floor; I felt desolated. The world, my world, was diminished….

S P E C T R U M S P E C T R U M S P E C T R U M M I K E R U D D B I L L P U T T . C O MM M I K E R U D D B I L…

..the family when I was a little boy. I think camping’s the present-day manifestation of men’s need to talk to Nature – and perhaps for Nature to talk back. It’s safer in this case to have Nature represent God and I think that most blokes would be comfortable with the communing with Nature metaphor. ‘Going…