Archive

Category Archives for "Oddness"
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Tattoos

I saw someone on the tube the other day with a penguin tattooed on her arm. It was quite well done, with shading and perspective. In fact, it could easily have been used as an illustration in a school textbook. Seeing her made me surprised all over again at how popular tattoos are. They’re basically […]

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Quirky, absurd, whimsical

The Guardian review got me thinking about these words. In a way I’m surprised they exist, since there is very little in Britain that isn’t quirky, absurd or whimsical. I was in Derbyshire last weekend, where I visited Chatsworth House, the ancestral home of the dukes of Devonshire (the earls of Derby, of course, live […]

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Low-key supernatural, part II

On Thursday evening I went to a pub called the Lamb, on Lamb’s Conduit Street. I was sitting in the low bit at the back, beside the door leading to the stairs (and thence to the lavatories and powder room). Kerry came back with our second drinks while I still had about an inch of […]

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Today’s top search term

Of the searches that brought people to my website today, my favourite by far is “grow a beard like Nicholas II”. It’s great that someone out there wants to grow a beard like Tsar Nicholas II’s and is using the internet to find out how. It’s even better that Google thinks my site (this post) […]

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Low-key supernatural

Last weekend I was at my friend Francesca’s house. There were four of us there, drinking wine, talking and listening to music on her boyfriend’s iPod, which was on top of the bookshelf. (Incidentally, Francesca is the only person I know who orders her books by colour.)  We were sprawling around on the sofa or […]

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