I came across an old song the other day that bemoaned the fact that the English language was being ruined. It had been ‘totally diswobbled, pulverized and collywobbled’ according to the song. The songwriter had created an amusing ditty by highlighting some of the words whose definitions had been given new meaning over the years.

The website Wikipedia describes ‘brain drain’ as the large-scale emigration of a large group of individuals with technical skills or knowledge. However, a local man I once met used the term for something completely different. In the later years of his life he described ‘brain drain’ as the complete waste of all the wisdom he had gained over his many years alive.

In a recent blog, my eldest brother—a latecomer to the industry but nonetheless a news reporter for over thirty years—explained that he had decided to slowly wean himself off the daily news feed that had for so long dominated his life. As a news junkie and broadcast journalist he had spent a great deal of his life using newspapers, radio, television and the internet to keep himself abreast of what was going on in the world.

I know that the first month of the year tends to attract a lot of press comment on health and fitness but there seems to be a lot this month about both the physical and mental health of bosses and their employees. According to a recent French study, if you are unhappy at work, it could be partly due to your boss’ management style.

As the curtain slowly closed around the coffin in a small and rather bleak crematorium in Slough last week, I didnt know whether to laugh or cry when the first bars of Bruce Springsteen’s Born to Run suddenly broke the silence in the room.

Every morning I get up and make a solemn promise to either, go to the gym, take a brisk stroll, have a swim, or at the very least walk the dog. Any of these activities might help to fight middle aged flab and give me a little much needed exercise.

About 27 years ago, after I had watched my father succumb to cancer, I learned a profound lesson.

It became blatantly obvious to me that very little of what I worried about in my life really mattered.

Most of us living in the country have become used to the disruption to the rural idyll that happens around the end of summer; when tractors turn the lanes into a grand prix circuit

For many years in my youth I spent a lot of time enjoying live music. There was obviously no internet in those days and seeing bands often meant trips down the M4 to wait in long queues

At a wedding I attended in Ireland recently there was much talk about austerity. The bride and groom, although already a couple for many years, were embarking on a new life together and

Reading about Margaret Thatcher recently, I was surprised to note that it was only a little more than twenty years ago when she was still in power.

I was surprised last month at how the premature death of golfer Seve Ballesteros affected me. I am not a golfer.

The fact that men and women may occasionally think differently has been debated and researched for centuries, and no doubt it’s a subject that will keep many of us amused for years to come.

‘Solar Genocide’ is how one person described the government’s recent announcement that it may cut its incentive initiative, the Feed-in Tariff (FIT), by up to 75% for solar projects above 50kW.

When sorting out some of my mother’s possessions after she died many years ago, I came across a video of the film Wall Street. At the time it struck me as a very odd choice of film for her to own

I have four young daughters. Each one is completely different to the other

The way that people behave in shops has been monitored by marketing experts for some time, and over the last ten years or so, similar monitoring has

I should preface this by saying I think there are probably a lot of good things on television… however, these days I have four young children obsessing about

You’d think that launching a new food magazine and visiting one of the most popular Food Fairs in the country would be two good reasons to forget about a healthy eating diet for a while. But no

The recent visit to the UK by Pope Benedict XVI was heavily covered by the media, and although Vatican related activity loomed large in my life as a child, I was surprised