While browsing the internet today I came across something which at first glance you'd think would send any writer into a tailspin of despair. Apparently there is a faceless army of detractors in the audience just waiting to tear our work to pieces, before they have even looked at it. They pounce on writing by authors they dislike, or on subjects they disagree with for the sheer pleasure of getting themselves wound up into a frenzy. They have a name - “Hate-readers”. Hate-reading is deliberately buying a newspaper or visiting a website with the express intention of getting annoyed and frustrated at what you know it is going to say. If you click on a Facebook post or twitter comment just because you have a dislike for the author you are indulging in hate-reading. If, as a staunch nationalist, you dash to pick up a paper praising the virtues of being part of the European Union, you are getting your fix. Technology and the internet have allowed hate-rea...

Today we have been treated to pictures of Davina McCall proudly showing off her washboard stomach. She is doing some fit club, celebrity lose weight show - I've posted a link to today's  Mail story for anyone interested in seeing her straining with a car tyre or gurning to heave a medicine ball to achieve a six-pack- ok, ok, we'd all love one. Davina put through her paces I can’t cope up with the constantly-changing messages of what is and isn’t going to make me fat. Health experts get some perverse pleasure issuing relentless guidelines on what to eat, drink, not eat, and how many hours in the gym you need to stay slim. I have become a bit of an expert in the world of health, diet and fitness over the past few years – and that’s selling myself short. Having been a chubby teenager (ok  fat) , I was left with a hangover of crippling fear at the slightest thought of putting on weight. Nowadays the comment “you’re looking well” from a friend I haven’t seen f...

Sunday is to become my day to sit back, relax and have no-holds-barred rant about the world. My weekend therapy will be as follows: kettle on - coffee (strong), door closed with everyone behind it, M and Ms stacked up - sorry, check, I’m off sugar - scrub that. Metaphoric bottle of the week’s irritations at the ready and I’m set to pull out the cork and let them spill out of in all their vitriolic glory. From train delays to tabard-clad chuggers accosting me in the street holding clip boards and insisting they don’t want my money - yeah right. Benefit scroungers (you just wait) to asylum seekers moaning they can’t get the swimming pool in their council house to the right temperature. The day of rest is now dedicated to exorcising the things that quite frankly drive me mad. For example this week we learnt the dedicated staff on London’s Docklands Light Railway (DLR) are to receive a 25-per cent increase in overtime as an incentive to work over the Olympics. That’s as goo...

It’s time to dust off the flares and hunt out the platforms, I sniff a 70s revival. My suspicion was sparked by the announcement today Abba is set to release a never-before heard song - Hooray!! It has been 20 years and a few inferior imitations (Erasure’s bizarre version of Take A Chance On Me) since the Swedish super- group has done anything new. In 1994 they put out a box set Thank You For The Music, named after the song, which included a couple of new tracks. Put On Your White Sombrero was one, I don’t understand why that wasn’t released years before. The new offering will be included on a re-issue of The Visitors album which was first released in 1981. I am not sure why Misters Andersson and Ulveus have picked The Visitors as it didn’t really showcase any of their really big, best-known hits. “Head Over Heels”, “When All Is Said and Done” and “Slipping Through My Fingers” to name three. Of course everybody remembers Dancing Queen. Certainly anyon...

The debate over climate change continued to rage today in light of a report which claims Britain faces a flooding crisis over the next 50 years as a result of global warming. The report - UK 2012 Climate Risk Assessment – claims the country is at imminent of drought, raging wildfires, disease and pollution. The cost of flooding alone is expected to soar  from £1.2 billion a year to between £1.5 billion and £3.5 billion by the 2020s, and £12 billion by 2080. Climate change in Britain will cause insurance premiums to rocket, sewers to overflow and roads to crumble according to the report published today by the Department for Environment Food and Rural Affairs (Defra). It lists 100 potential consequences of global warming including hotter summers, warmer winters and the threat of pest and insect invasion from abroad. Around 5,900 more people could die as a result of hot summers although up to 24,000 cold-related deaths in winter could be avoided. Other risks include in...

I almost let one of the most important days in the calendar slip by without paying it homage. I don’t bother with Christmas, New Year or Halloween, and please don’t get me started on Valentine’s Day. They’re all just a nonsense, guilt-inducing, money-making ploy to get decent hard-working people such as my self to part with our hard-earned cash while a damocleastical sword of being “stingy”, “ a Scrooge”, or “miserly” hangs precariously overhead. Bah humbug! to the lot I say– and go and boil yourself with holly, or whatever the saying is. But today brought the opportunity to pay genuine trubute, an opportunity to mark something truly great – Happy Peanut Butter Day! Really I’m not joking, January 24 is apparently National Peanut Butter Day – and why the  crunchy or smooth not? I think it's actually an American thing because all the buzz is about the virtues of spreading the stuff on "biscuits" and packing it in your child’s "lunch pail" – but let's not allo...

There is always a fine yarn to be had out of the good old British weather. That's probably why it has always been such a popular and reliable subject of conversation. Short of something to say? -Offer up the rain, wind, or “blimey aint it ‘ot” as a metaphorical icebreaker - it never fails. Us Brits don’t want the reliable Mediterranean sunshine any more than we want wall-to-wall snow and ice. We have the thrill of waking up to snow in April or sweating and panting through a heat wave in October. However much we say we hate it we love it, or else we wouldn’t talk about it all the time. I love writing about it - in all its bonkers, topsy-turvey British glory. I can always rely on the weather to cough up something meaty for my morning news list. If there is a good weather story on the cards, the Government could announce it was scrapping income tax and newsrooms would still probably be abuzz with talk of “what's the weather doing today?” This week is a corker...

Shivers, cravings, lethargy, mood-swings, sweats, cramps...how the hell did I get myself hooked? That's right, I confess, I'm a junkie.  Without my daily fix I'm ready to scratch the emulsion off the walls with just my finger nails. I used to be a smoker - three in the morning before I could see in focus, 10 in the evening, around 15 in between with another in the middle of the night if I woke up. Copious Nicotine Replacement Therapy and a natural reserve of willpower helped me kick the habit. Nine years later - clean. I haven't been averse to the odd drink either. Collapsing on the sofa with a bottle of wine each night was a ritual for years. A friend bought be one of those fancy bottle sealers to plug the neck after a glass or two - they must have had a sense of humour, I never used it. Realising I was dangerously close to another addiction, I kicked Mr Merlot to the kerb with relative ease. Eight years later - dry. But this is something els...