"I think I’m at the cranky stage of life where I don’t have time for complicated metaphors or imagery and get annoyed when people don’t get to the point."

You can’t underestimate the power of free stuff, especially free fuel, and especially free fuel that would have been thrown out

Part 2 — some more easy things we (ok I) don’t do enough of

I’m not talking about sea swimming or long walks. These require effort and planning. I’m talking about things that are within reach, yet inexplicably underused.

"It’s a reminder of the passage of time. Like finding out that the young people you didn’t understand are themselves baffled by the generation that come after them."

If anyone feels like inviting me to a dinner party, rest assured I’ll be casually introducing the word "pericarp" into the conversation

"If you were a pretentious country teenager in a house without a VCR, there was nowhere else to watch this stuff. Watching quare/slow films was one of the reasons for going to college."

"Just being in messy places where quiet genius takes place makes my soul sing"

"There is no age limit officially, but if the baby is getting very mobile then the parent can’t really relax, because a waddler will be off out to the lounge watching The Chase with a load of oul' lads."

"Between cookies and the endless ads that appear on pages, paging the normal internet now has become as frustrating as the days of dial up and Netscape loading the page one per cent at a time."