Category Archives: Grumpy Old Men

Bah Humbug!: Christmas and beyond

Posted on December 4, 2012 by BarryH

I regret that I don’t and never have, enjoyed Christmas.  Required jollity is not my thing.  Nor is the hyperventilating commercialisation which tries to drag behind it a vague connexion with the birth of Christ which the church does its … Continue reading →

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November Daily Blog 22: Advertising, pseudo science and manipulation

Posted on November 22, 2012 by BarryH

More than half a century ago our forward looking English teacher in school included in the curriculum a series of lessons on advertising techniques.  I have forgotten much about grammatical construction and the poems of Alfred Lord Tennyson but I … Continue reading →

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November Daily Blog 21: The news. Informative? Depressing? Trivial? Necessary!

Posted on November 21, 2012 by BarryH

I used to be addicted to TV news, pride myself on knowing what was going on in the world..  I would hush the family so I could watch catch every morsel of it as we ate our evening meal.   I … Continue reading →

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November Daily Blog 20: knees, frustrations, running to stand still

Posted on November 20, 2012 by BarryH

Some days don’t go as planned.  Some days don’t bear any resemblance to what was planned.  Some days seem to just go haywire, full of activity but with no forward momentum.  Running fast to stay in the same place.  Tuesday … Continue reading →

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November Daily Blog 5: clichés, truth and poetic cobblers.

Posted on November 5, 2012 by BarryH

Mention ‘Autumn’ and like-as-not someone will think of and, if they don’t have a filter between their mind and their mouth, trot out the line “season of mists and mellow fruitfulness”.  It has become so much a cliché that I … Continue reading →

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Manchester, Kos, Nisyros …. it’s all Greek to me

Posted on August 27, 2012 by BarryH

I travelled Up North en route to Greece on Friday.  If that sounds counter-intuitive, travelling north to go south, it was simply that I was flying from Manchester with the great bonus of seeing friends and family up there before … Continue reading →

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New habits dying hard: greyness in the brain

Posted on July 10, 2012 by BarryH

Whether we like to think so or not, habits are an integral part of life for most of us.  Apart from anything else they are the lubricant which we use to cope with the boring, everyday stuff.  It is also … Continue reading →

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Down to earth with a squelch, naked garlic, blue sky thinking

Posted on July 5, 2012 by BarryH

Arrival back in the UK from Athens was not as unpleasant as the avuncular pilot predicted at takeoff.  Rather than raining and 14oC, the weather in Manchester was about 18oC, dry with sunny intervals and there was a modest amount … Continue reading →

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Gerolimenas: more tower-house villages and scree-running.

Posted on June 26, 2012 by BarryH

Monday and I resorted to the plan originally pencilled in for Sunday, a long walk from Gerolimenas taking in some tower-house villages and a mountain top. My ambition for the whole trip has been to travel by public transport rather … Continue reading →

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Areopoli: footpaths, anthropiverous spiders, and irritability

Posted on June 23, 2012 by BarryH

Thursday’s exertions had taken a lot out of me so I opted for a gentle amble along footpaths heading to a beach and swimming.  Because I wasn’t focused on the need to get from A to B and back within … Continue reading →

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