On pedantry.

Incidently?
Left arm up, right arm down.
Tsk. Tsk. Tsk.

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On the Victoria and Albert Museum.

The Victoria and Albert Museum doesn’t expect many visits from the Star.
I’m not sure why this is true, given that its sumptuous cafe – there are glittering chandeliers, high ceilings, domes, columns, impressive interior tiles on the walls and the floors and the ceiling, as well as stained glass windows – was full of families [...]

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On another notable first.

Total time elapsed before the Star attempted to eat the crayons? Five minutes. It was just after breakfast though.

Guess which bit I did and which bit the Star did.

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On the Royal Academy.

You are finding that certain things strike you in an entirely, and usually unanticipated light, now you have a child in tow.
Take the early darkening evenings, for example. You used to quite enjoy this. Coming home in the dark, twinkly lights, a chill in the air. It all gave you an excuse to eat hearty [...]

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On misleading advertising

Now you wouldn’t want to give anyone the impression that you are anti advertising.
Far from it, in fact. You find ads endlessly fascinating.
You take a secret delight in an industry that is blatantly all about manipulation. So much more honest than the pretence of making objective news reports.
It’s quite soothing just to be able to relax [...]

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On activating your schemata.

You can be very boring on the topic of grammar. And punctuation. Particularly commas. The rules are comforting, even if you do treat them as something of an abstract concept when it actually becomes time to apply them.
You are considerably more interested in how we actually use language, though. And the routines we follow and [...]

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On being beside the seaside.

  You have always considered that Turner’s paintings of the sea are often a bit on the beige side.
You are aware, of course, that water is not necessarily blue in the same way that holiday brochures of Caribbean islands, children’s paintings and remote mountain tarns would have us believe. Nevertheless, you always assumed that the correct [...]

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On St Petersburg.

 You’ve just said goodbye to the cousin from St Petersburg. Her visit meant you got in some Proper Sightseeing, and reminded you of the time you stayed with her in her home town. Here’s what you wrote: 
2003 marks the year when Peter I stood in the middle of a mosquito-infested swamp he had just wrested [...]

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On the importance of noticing shoes.

A young colleague once told you that the people of L___ - the next small town over from the small town in which you both lived and worked – are ‘not the same as us’.
This, of course, tells you everything you ever need to know about how wars, pogroms or ethnic cleansing get started. However, while conceding that if [...]

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