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Continue reading →: The perfect espresso
Taste is subjective, but there is in most people’s minds a quality to coffee that can be agreed upon. Strength might be quantified on supermarket packets, but that only tells half the story. Flavour is key. Flavour without strength is disappointing, whereas strength without flavour does not tick the essential box for…
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Continue reading →: Food Bank
The season of excess fast approaches. Most families will gather around the telly to fill their faces with chocolates, crisps, peanuts, vol au vents and crudités. On those same television sets will appear ads from charities with their Christmas appeals. How much will we spend on presents, food and booze…
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Continue reading →: Espresso or Nespresso?
I have bought myself an early Christmas present. A bean-to-cup coffee maker. I’m impressed with the coffee it delivers accompanied by whirring noises and a preliminary cleaning rinse.I had heard that the Nespresso machines make good coffee, but there’s something about buying your own beans, selecting how fine you want…
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Continue reading →: Literature and Mental Health
I like a MOOC. One of the courses I dipped into examined the effects of literature on mental health. People benefited from reading or listening to the written word to ease their troubles. A researcher at Warwick University asked if I would be willing to read a poem a day…
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Continue reading →: Boosting
£4 is a small price to pay for a wide range of things…a pint of beer, a really good sandwich, a bicycle inner tube, a one day bus pass, a Sunday paper or some socks. I chose to lavish my pounds on boosting a facebook post. This was not some…
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Continue reading →: Civic Duty
I have been summoned to the local court for jury service next month. It’s strange being called to consider evidence against people you have never met. There is so much that I will never know about the person in the dock, and perhaps that will make the task easier. Imagine if I…
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Continue reading →: Proceed without caution
Emerging from a drought of words, I gave a moment’s thought to today’s blog and came up with very little, as usual. But this has not deterred me from rambling on in the hope that something coherent will emerge. Tough times for the family as my wife watches her mother…
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Continue reading →: Beers and Big Business
The informality of a bar can be conducive to satisfactory business dealings. However, it may be necessary to keep a record of what has been agreed. When 4 or 5 pints have been consumed one party may be a bit hazy about precisely how many millions of pounds were to…
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Continue reading →: Words as camouflage
Sometimes we get bamboozled by the speaker’s choice of words. Obfuscation does not make matters plain, for instance. Ineffability is hard to describe, and here is a poem that describes a situation that many of us have experienced with those revered members of the medical profession. Consent to Orchidectomy by P.W.…
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Continue reading →: James Hewitt – nice bar, good poet
The John Hewitt bar on North Street in Belfast serves some fine ales and decent food. Named after the poet and run as a workers’ co-operative, it is one of my favourite bars in Belfast. Check out their website for gigs and sessions. Here’s one of Hewitt’s poems called The Scar…
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