Monthly Archives: December 2018

A step too far

Posted on December 31, 2018 by odeboyz

Two campers are hiking in the woods when one is bitten on the rear end by a rattlesnake. “I’ll go into town for a doctor,” the other says. He runs ten miles to a small town and finds the doctor … Continue reading →

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Book Review: Douglas Sutherland ~ The English Gentleman (1978)

Posted on December 31, 2018 by odeboyz

This is a wonderful quirky book. I read it in about two hours and every moment was a pleasure. This is absolutely not a ‘how-to-be’ a gentleman; indeed it’s the opposite. Gentlemen are gentlemen to the core of their being. … Continue reading →

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Odeboyz goes off piste

Posted on December 20, 2018 by odeboyz

   

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Logical shopping

Posted on December 20, 2018 by odeboyz

A wife asks her husband, “Could you please go shopping for me and buy one carton of milk and if they have avocados, get six. A short time later the husband comes back with six cartons of milk. The wife … Continue reading →

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Poison in a round tin

Posted on December 19, 2018 by odeboyz

In 1963, I’d begun my plumbing apprenticeship and was working on a building site at Waltham Cross. My boss, Tony, told me that I was going to join the six rainwater stacks into the earthenware drains using a product called … Continue reading →

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Stealing the honest way

Posted on December 17, 2018 by odeboyz

An Englishman stole three buns from a bakery and said to his friend, “That took skill and guile. The owner doesn’t know a thing about it.” His Irish friend said, “That’s simple thievery. I’ll do the same but honestly and … Continue reading →

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Film Review: Sorry to bother you (Lakieth Stanfield and Armie Hammer)

Posted on December 17, 2018 by odeboyz

Black director Boots Riley has outshone Spike Lee’s BlackkKansman. Riley has simultaneously created a searing indictment of institutional and unconscious racism, a satire on telemarketing and a vicious attack on American capitalism. Cassius Green (Lakieth Stanfield) is a wonderful character. … Continue reading →

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The Two Obadiah’s

Posted on December 17, 2018 by odeboyz

When just a boy, I asked Dad What’s the oldest song you know? He pulled the music stool out And while playing he began to sing. It turns out that when Dad was a boy He asked his own Grandad … Continue reading →

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Why posh boys and girls run the Arts

Posted on December 13, 2018 by odeboyz

Not long ago, my wife, a composer, asked me if I would ever advise a student from a low-income family to pursue a career in the arts. “What do you mean? Of course.” “Really?” “If that’s what they wanted to … Continue reading →

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The defeat of cholera

Posted on December 13, 2018 by odeboyz

New epidemic diseases are always terrifying.1 Cholera arrived in Britain in 1832 when Britain didn’t have a medical-scientific infrastructure to cope. Favoured explanations for cholera were Miasma, (roughly, ‘bad air’), moral turpitude and God’s anger. Victorian Britain’s rationalists looked for … Continue reading →

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