"For some, it affords the time to reconnect with their special person over a nice meal in a restaurant - for others, it’s a time to stand at the window of restaurants, making lewd gestures at the couples inside."

"Lockdown gave us a certain licence — an off-licence if you will — to blur the lines between the weekend and not-weekend. A shnakey can at the end of days ending with a y was not unheard of."

This herb, lime, and chilli salsa sauce will give it bags of flavour

"Just like First Dates had a few situations where two people sat opposite each other and realised they’d brought each other to their debs, or one had given the other maths grinds, or were actually cousins. Or all three."

'Some tree species like to grow with others of their ilk, as their root systems sort of work together. So the tree died because it was all alone. Sorry, it’s just got very dusty in here, all of a sudden'

Is there anything more efficient than a hot water bottle?

"Essentially, I just want to be Leonardo Da Vinci, travelling from one unscrupulous fabulously wealthy Italian patron to another producing great work, never letting the moss grow under my feet..."

I hereby declare this new folder on my laptop called '2024' open! As usual for such a momentous occasion, we celebrate with the least imaginative of columns — Alternative Predictions for 2024

"I haven’t brought anything to the potluck of dullness yet. I may never do. I’ll just sip my tea and read questions about why do they use commas instead of decimal points in some countries, or what people’s favourite soups are."

"Let’s hear it for the gadget fixers. In a world awash with the hazardous waste of discarded memory of our memories, these people chip away at the expansion of the waste pile, once you leave them to your own devices."