Curtain Down on 2024
Only ten more days before the start of a new year. Two hundred and forty hours into which I’ll ram as much as I can in a manic effort to...
Tails from The Rodent Shakespeare Company: Little Shop of Horrors
Beneath the stage of a beautiful old Victorian theatre one balmy summer’s evening the members of the Rodent Shakespeare Company were...
Resilient Night or Riding the Storm - Yuletide Blog
Sometimes you just have to hang on in there and try your best to ride the storm. Batten down the hatches. Whether it’s in a relationship,...
Tails from the Rodent Shakespeare Company: Barnum
In the west of the city of Newcastle-upon-Tyne, in a beautiful old theatre way down beneath the stage dwells a small community of mice...
Tails from The Rodent Shakespeare Company : Cats!
Let me take you to the west of the city of Newcastle, to an historic building that has seen the comings and goings of theatrical...
2023: Putting off Procrastinating!
It’s almost that time of year when we crawl out of the debris and the festive foist with bin-bags and bleach at the ready to clear out...
Just Another Crazy Week
So it’s a funny old world we live in, isn’t it? A lot of the time just fumbling through each day, trying not to do or say anything too...
Ja Ja Ding Dong-a-Bang Bang on a String
One of my many weaknesses is that I am a fan of Eurovision. Sometimes I worry how much I enjoy it. It’s partly sentimental - memories of...
Hope Springs
Spring as a rule is officially my favourite season, blessed with tweeting chicks, cute little lambs drinking from baby bottles, daffodils...
Because We’re Happy….
Clap along if you feel like a room without a roof. Go on, I’m sure you’ve often felt that way - I know I have and like Pharrell I often...
Yule Blog: The Game of Life
Another three hundred and sixty five and a quarter days come and go, another glorious trip around the big old yellow fireball and in some...
Fifty Shades of Blonde Part VI: Back To Black
The decade that began full of attitude with punk and new wave was by late 1988 drowning in songs produced factory-style by Stock, Aitken...
Fifty Shades of Blonde Part IV: Boys, Boys, Boys
Somewhere in amongst all of the streaks, perms, stiff-as-cardboard back-combed fringes, bum fluff and whisps, those early signs of human...
Fifty Shades of Blonde Part III: Sweet Bedlington High
To a stirring soundtrack of Bonnie Tyler, Jennifer Rush and Colonel Abrams I left Middle school with my big blonde mullet and headed off...
Fifty Shades of Blonde Part II: Bleach For The Stars
One important area of change as we traversed innocently into the 1980’s, like the bit in Wizard of Oz where it moves into full blaring...
Fifty Shades of Blonde - The 80’s Years
It’s September, the start of another academic year, and for many of the people from my own school year the next twelve months brings with...
To Be or Not To Be Oneself, That is the Question
I was working on my laptop with the tv on in the background when the tone changed suddenly and it was announced that HRH Prince Philip,...
Fifty Shades of Brown Part V: The Final Brown-Down
1977 heralded the Queen's Silver Jubilee Celebrations bringing with it street parties, triangular sandwiches, games and bunting - lots of...
Fifty Shades of Brown Part IV: Afternoon Tea and Wrestling at Grandmas & Grandads
Once Saturday morning TV was over it was time to head into Blyth to peruse the bustling open air market then on to my dad's parents'...

























