Whatever happened to shirt tails? I was pondering on that sartorial deficiency the other day as I unbuckled my belt and adjusted my trousers for the third time that day in order to tuck in my shirt. Shirts just aren’t what they were. I can remember when shirt tails stretched halfway down your thighs, providingContinue reading “Blog 146. Egg Nog Anyone? Or Cheesecake Perhaps?”
Author Archives: Commander Shacklepin
Blog 145. Janet and John Go To Paris
It is a curious thing, but if you were to ask the average Englishman or Englishwoman which country was England’s oldest ally, he or she – if well educated – would probably say, correctly, “Portugal” (I refer the honourable reader to the Treaty of Windsor of 1386). Ask the same English person which country isContinue reading “Blog 145. Janet and John Go To Paris”
Blog 144. My Silver Coach Has Just Turned Into a Pumpkin
You know, there’s something about a steam cleaner. When you’ve started cleaning with it, you just can’t put it down. It’s a bit like when you use a pressure washer: you clean up a bit of the front drive and you think, “Wow, this is really good”, so you move on to pressure-wash the path;Continue reading “Blog 144. My Silver Coach Has Just Turned Into a Pumpkin”
Blog 143. Does Your House Have a Number?
Roland is back. That is to say, Roland, his live-in partner, his mistress, his children, and his children’s children have decided that our home is a very desirable place to live (plenty of food and water, good schools, liberal policy towards down-trodden and much-maligned creatures, immediate accommodation with H&C etc). They have, therefore, moved in. Continue reading “Blog 143. Does Your House Have a Number?”
Blog 142. The Burning Question
“It’s a long ship, this.”Thus spoke the memsahib as we sat outside on our patio in the shade, wallowing in the delight of a pleasingly hot day like hippopotami in the mud of the Rufiji River. I could not resist the thought that I had trained her well, for the phrase is Royal-Navy-Speak for, “MyContinue reading “Blog 142. The Burning Question”
Blog 141. The Great Alka-Seltzer Experiment
It would have been the year 1959, as I recall, that commercial television came to Tyneside. Before that we only had one television channel, the BBC, and that broadcasting in black and white only from 1700 to 2300. The hours for Independent Television (ITV) were the same as those for the BBC, but the channel,Continue reading “Blog 141. The Great Alka-Seltzer Experiment”
Blog 140. I Never Promised You A Rose Garden
Death may be inevitable, but that does not detract from the emotional upset of losing someone or some living thing close to you: a living thing that you have nurtured and cared for from its very beginning until the life is snuffed out of it. Jane has just suffered a tragic loss and, even now,Continue reading “Blog 140. I Never Promised You A Rose Garden”
Blog 139. The Watch Ashore
“Ain’t no sunshine when she’s gone”.So ran the song by the late Bill Withers in 1971, when I was a fresh-faced young Midshipman serving in a destroyer, I had a 30” waist, plenty of fair hair, a brand new Triumph Spitfire to impress the girls, and the world was my oyster. That ship has sailed,Continue reading “Blog 139. The Watch Ashore”
Blog 138. Finished With Main Engines
Frankly, I blame the manufacturer of the claret-coloured corduroy trousers. I had bought the rather daring aforementioned items in the Spring because I thought it was time to be a little more adventurous in my sartorial habits, and claret seemed a sophisticated colour. But I had hardly worn the trousers before what is laughably calledContinue reading “Blog 138. Finished With Main Engines”
Blog 137. Mudlarks
‘Stop peering’. I was thus addressed by my dear wife one Sunday lunchtime as I scrutinised the plated-up Sunday roast. She followed this up with a threat, and a gesture with the loaded plate,‘You’ll get this over you in a minute. Stop peering, I say’.Of course, I backed off immediately and gazed innocently out of theContinue reading “Blog 137. Mudlarks”
"A Very Vintage Chap..." 