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Adrian ChilesThe Guardian |
There’s something I heard that I can’t get out of my mind. It’s one line in a very long book full of other very good lines. This was the...
I gave up hugging people just before Christmas; I thought it was for the best. I’m in my mid-50s, possibly a bit smelly and live in fear of coming...
What’s the biggest compliment a child can pay a parent? How can a woman make her father’s chest swell with pride? For me, there is an easy answer....
How long must guilt last? When I was a boy, aged about 10, I had a football that I kicked around for years, with my mates, with my brother or all on...
Many has been the time I’ve dragged my daughter out for a walk, and everything is ticking along nicely until the footpath takes us through a field...
I need to stop banging on about death and dying, I know, or people are going to start crossing the street when they see me coming. But there is one...
There are good things and there are bad things. The trick is to enjoy the good things as much as possible and do everything you can to avoid making...
Round at my mate’s house, one Saturday morning when I was 17 years old, something astounding appeared on his television. This was 3 November 1984. I...
Blokes wearing hats indoors – beanie hats. What’s that all about? It does my, well, head in. But seriously, why? I was in a fancy restaurant...
Peter Mandelson opines that the leader of the opposition could do with losing a few pounds. Odd one, this, for at least two reasons. First, because...
I was a big football fan for a long time before I got to know any footballers. It soon became clear to me that they didn’t really understand what...
In times of stress, I attack the garden. And the garden retaliates. After a long day’s toil, working up quite a sweat despite the cold, I was a...
I thought I would get up early to write this, like I think I’ll get up early to do something every morning. I set the alarm, full of sincere...
It’s amazing what you can get used to, how you can learn new normals, how you can – perish the thought – learn the error of your ways. Like most...
On Sunday evening in Abidjan, the president of Cote d’Ivoire, Alassane Ouattara, was at the, er, Alassane Ouattara stadium, to watch his country win...
I’ve only ever written one fan letter in my life, which is odd because I’m a fan of lots of people and things. This was in the early 90s, after...
About 15 years ago, an Australian woman I worked with took me to one side and told me I should get Botox. I was busy building a career as a television...
The queue for my morning coffee was short but slow-moving. I was next but one up, but the woman in pole position seemed to have ordered an awful lot...
If you’re going to fall over and fracture your shoulder, then try not to do it on a freezing Saturday evening in January. That would be my advice,...
I went to Barcelona for a few days early in the new year. It was nice – chilly, but with a suggestion of warmth in the sun. And there were colours...
How heartless is the human spirit each January. Christmas trees, shedding needles like tears, are left out in the cold for disposal. Less visible, but...
Santa brought me some lapsang souchong teabags for Christmas. I had run out of them sometime in the middle of last year. This was no great tragedy as,...
I’m rubbish at packing. Be it for a night away or for several months, I’m hopeless. I never, but never, fail to forget something essential. A...
I’m often oblivious to what is going on in front of me, but there are certain situations in which I miss nothing, such as when I’m giving any kind...
I know what I want for Christmas – an LED sign for the back window of my car. I’ve only just realised these things are readily available. I...
Oddly, given what I do for a living, I’m most uncomfortable drawing attention to myself, especially if it’s something to do with what I’m...
Can I suggest that the former Newsnight presenter Peter Snow, who feels starved of the journalism that matters (Letters, 1 December), watches Channel...
A spectre is haunting British politics. Its outline is instantly recognisable to every Briton of a certain age: hair coiffed into a halo, shoulders...
Each to their own, and all that, but I do occasionally enjoy challenging those who profess to have not one iota of religious belief. Nothing too...
I owe vets an apology. I wrote something about the commercialisation of veterinary care a couple of weeks ago which did the vast majority of them a...
Who is going to be where and with whom over Christmas? At either end of our lives, things become simpler because the decision tends to be made for us....
If you want a terrifying insight into what privatised primary healthcare could look like, get a pet and find a vet. It is not just that veterinary...
Some scenes are so awkward to watch that they really shouldn’t be shown without a warning: “Contains appalling awkwardness.” Footage of a photo...
My mate Big Dai was in town and it was raining. We needed something to do other than what we normally do, which is either walk our dogs or sit in a...
“Don’t hog the middle lane,” beseeched motorway signs all over the UK last weekend, at least on the sections of the M1, M42, M5 and M40 I had...
What’s Halloween all about? Warding off evil? Embracing evil? Laughing in the face of evil? Either way, with evil in the air in some shape or form,...
I could see there was something significant going on with this lad’s hair. Max, 13, had plainly gone to some trouble with it. His mum and dad, old...
My friend drove from Leeds to Wrexham to watch his football team play. For most of his life, before a couple of likable Hollywood actors bought his...
One day in 1973, holding my first best friend’s hand, we went on our first school trip. It was to Harvington Hall in Worcestershire, an Elizabethan...
The phone is king. We are its subjects. Phone screens are vertical, set up for portrait mode, and our world must change to fit that frame. Cricket, of...
When Carl Frampton from Belfast was seven years old, his mum thought he was a bit on the timid side – shy and short of confidence. So she took him...
I lost my political party conference virginity on Tuesday. I have been watching them from afar for more than 40 years without ever being at one in...
R onnie O’Sullivan has won an awful lot of snooker championships. This month he has added the 2023 Shanghai Masters to his collection. But he...
I have mixed feelings about traffic lights. When they are green, I like them; on red, not so much. And the longer they stay on red, the more annoyed...