Aniseed Balls

When a friend of mine told me that the Ryder Cup was about to begin, she was outraged when I casually enquired if the American cheating had started. Golf is supposed to be an oasis of honesty, etiquette, fair play and self-regulation in a sporting desert of deceit and over-enthusiastic gamesmanship. The Ryder Cup is the pinnacle of international competition in the sport, played by professionals in a temporary state of Corinthian amateurism: there is no prize money, only glory. Surely not even Americans would cheat at that? The 1991 Ryder Cup is notorious for the continued spat between Paul Azinger and Seve Ballesteros. Azinger insisted that he had not been trying to cheat, and Ballesteros retorted, "Oh no. Breaking the rules and cheating are two different things." He thought he was being sarcastic, but actually hit the nail very much on the head. For many Americans breaking the rules and getting away with it is not cheating. For these people the proprieties of a sport are f

My youngest daughter has a bedroom shelf full of cosmetic products. I pointed to one and asked what it was. "It's fake tan", came the answer. "What's this one?", I asked pointing to another. "It's fake tan", she said again. I indicated another one and repeated the question. Same reply. She then explained that they were different formulations with different application methodologies and had different levels of permanence, and that she had two more which I hadn't asked about. A couple of days later she breezed into the house to join us for dinner. "What's that on your face?" asked Mum. "Oh", she says, casual as you like. "It probably creosote." "But it's all over" says Mum. "Oh, then it's probably dirt from yesterday." I'm really proud of her!

When I first heard Leonard Cohen's famous song Hallelujah , I thought the last line of the first verse was The barefoot king composing Hallelujah This makes sense in reference to 2 Samuel 15:30 And David went up by the ascent of mount Olivet, and wept as he went up, and had his head covered, and he went barefoot: and all the people that was with him covered every man his head, and they went up, weeping as they went up. But all the lyric sources on the internet including Cohen's official site have the line as The baffled king composing Hallelujah which makes no sense whatever in the context of the verse.  Can anyone suggest why David might have been baffled rather than barefoot?  Does anyone have evidence to suggest that the words have been changed through error?

In the early years of BBC sports coverage, commentators were found simply by asking around for someone with the ‘right sort of background’. The result was that viewers were saddled for many years with sensationally bad commentary from totally unsuitable broadcasters. In tennis we were landed with Dan Maskell, in Formula 1 we had to endure Murray Walker and even a golf enthusiast does not deserve Peter Alliss. In snooker we had Ted Lowe foisted on us, and also Jack Karnehm, both pretty much as bad as one another. Ted Lowe is remembered mainly for saying, “and for those of you who are watching in black and white, the pink is next to the green”. When the new breed of commentators started in the 90s, they had a stumbling inception. Their lack of experience was evident. John Virgo’s commentary seemed all at odds with the play, his attempts at humour fell flat and he didn’t know when to stop talking. Neither did Willie Thorne, whose comprehensive dissection of every shot was like the too

Last year's University Challenge series was notable for the phenomenal knowledge of Gail Trimble , and also for the subsequent disqualification of her winning team from Corpus Christi College Oxford. This year I am proud to report that Emmanuel College Cambridge won the contest with team performances just as impressive as Corpus' last year. Emma lost their first round match but came back in remarkable style, and eventually embarrassed both Manchester University in the semis (315-120) and St John's College Oxford in the final (315-100). Their captain Alex Guttenplan was impressive, and has become a minor internet cult figure for being cute and for shutting Paxman up in one of the early rounds. Three cheers for Alex Guttenplan and Emmanuel College Cambridge!

I'll tell you what is rubbish: soups. Well not all soups obviously, but there is a certain kind of emperor’s clothes cookery book with ludicrous recipes, where soups are particularly vulnerable. As with a child's design and technology homework, like parents we are expected to feign approval. Curried Parsnip Soup There isn't much scope for inventing soups because people have been doing it for a very long time. The ones that work have stood; the ones that work really well have become the classics; and the ones that don't work have rightly been consigned to the compost heap. But the latter is too good for the soup recipes in some of these effete cuisine-style cookery books, usually with ludicrous titles like Taste of Dreams . The scope for novel soups lies in combining ingredients from disparate sources that have simply not come together before. The obvious example is Curried Parsnip Soup as popularized by Jane Grigson in the 1970s and still popular with restaurateurs f

Whenever I visit one of the big chain supermarkets I come out thinking "serves you right for going in". The most recent experience is illustrative and by no means unusual. Yak's butter I wanted cornmeal. I already knew that the local M&S didn't have any, so I went to the huge Tesco Extra nearby. After hunting high and low amid hordes of thoroughly unpleasant people and eventually determining that there was no customer service counter, I managed to find a staff member willing to humour me by checking on the computer. All they had was ready-made polenta.  I drove to the equally huge Sainsbury's Superstore a few miles away and again hunted high and low, before eventually asking an assistant who unapologetically claimed never to have heard of cornmeal or polenta. Keeping things simple I explained that cornmeal is what mexican tortilla is made from, and she looked at me as though I had asked for yak's butter. I got the impression that she knew for certain th

To start with I am posting here the various rants I have previously emailed to all and sundry.  I am setting the post date to match the original email.  In future I will post whenever I feel moved - I expect it will usually be when I am in grumpy old man mode.