Authors Electric

As I suppose is the case with many people at the time of writing this, my mind has been taken up with monitoring the news via various sources. There is only so much of the current news footage I can cope with at one time, and I don’t want to comment directly on what’s happening now. However, as I get older my mind tends to wander back to things I had almost forgotten about, and so the other day I found myself remembering a conversation I once had as a teenager in a park in Leningrad (St Petersburg). I was fortunate enough, although perhaps that isn’t the right word for it, to be able to study Russian and German at school instead of the more usual French and/or Latin. I found Russian was much more difficult than German because of all the endings that had to be learnt, which in some cases replaced the need for definite and indefinite articles, and sometimes made prepositions redundant. However I did persevere with it for six years and almost went on to study it at university, but I had...

So we recently succumbed to the siren call of all those fellow retirees who live their lives on the high seas by taking a short cruise around the Arabian Gulf .  We loved the sunshine but if you’re thinking of doing it, you might want to take this short test to decide if cruising is for you! 1. Time to pack! So do you: a)    Start planning your wardrobe a month in advance, using a printed timetable of which nights will be formal, casual, or themed and with your favourite weather app to hand. (You can always pay for extra baggage). b)    You assemble most of last year’s summer wardrobe and your one posh frock, throw in a few panic buys then throw them out again in case you go over the baggage allowance   c)     Your Rohan gear is light and crinkle-proof. You share a rucksack as usual 2. After an overnight flight you’ve been embarked (yes, this is a transitive verb) but have yet to be  reunited with you...