Articles tagged Personal:
Twenty Five (Good & Bad) Personal Reasons to Remember 2019
- 29 Dec 2019
New Year is always a time to reflect on what's happened over the previous twelve months - the good and the bad. Friends you've made, loved ones you have lost. Workwise, 2019 was a great year for me. The move to the evening slot tuirned out to be a great thing, given much of...
Disgracing Myself in the Kremlin Age 13 3/4
- 9 Jan 2019
I was talking to a friend who's about to visit Moscow, so I thought I'd entertain her with a rather sordid anecdote from my first visit there in 1976, when I was a mere 13 years old. It was a trip organised by my school and we spent five days each in Leningrad (as it then w...
My New Year's Resolutions for 2019
- 31 Dec 2018
I just looked back at my the resolutions I made for 2018. Here's how I did... To be consistently under 16 stone by the end of the year. I’m 16 1/2 at the moment and have been for some time. ACHIEVED. I'm under 15 1/2 now. To say ‘no’ more often, and not feel guilty abo...
Starting in January: My New Weekly Column in the EDP & EADT
- 2 Dec 2018
As many of you know, I’m an East Anglian boy at heart. I was born in Cambridge and spent the first 18 years of my life being brought up in a little village in the Essex/Suffolk/Cambridgeshire border called Ashdon, near Saffron Walden. I then spent six years in Norwich, firs...
From Fat Chozzer to Finally Getting Under 16 Stone
- 18 Aug 2018
Until I was 13 I was as thin as a rake. Then I got a terrible bout of food poisoning on a school trip to Russia, the effects of which lasted for six months. Since then I only have to look at a Smartie and I put on a pound. I also have quite a big frame (all that bale carting i...
Northbank Talent Management Signs Up A New Client - Me
- 26 Jun 2018
One of the things you never notice when you’re doing a job is what it takes out of you. When I left Biteback at the end of May I didn’t realise not only how much time it would free up, but also how much of a burden had been lifted from my shoulders. I took very seriously the ...
The Words No One Wants to Hear - "It Could be Pre-Cancerous"
- 12 May 2018
Around a year ago I was just finishing my 3.59pm talkup, at the start of my show – the bit where I take over from Shelagh Fogarty. I saw her looking at me rather intently. As the news started she said to me: “You should get that looked at.” I had no clue what she was referrin...
20 Things I Did For the First Time
- 21 Apr 2018
First Job Mucking out my Dad’s pigs on a Saturday morning for 10p an hour First Real Job Researcher to Patrick Thompson MP 1985-7 First Role in Politics Chairman of UEA Conservatives in 1981 First Car An orange Ford Cortina Mk III, lovingly nicknamed the Big Jaffa. I wrote ...
Twenty Things I Did For the First Time...
- 11 Apr 2018
First Job Mucking out my Dad’s pigs on a Saturday morning for 10p an hour First Real Job Researcher to Patrick Thompson MP 1985-7 First Role in Politics Chairman of UEA Conservatives in 1981 First Car An orange Ford Cortina Mk III, lovingly nicknamed the Big Jaffa. I wrote ...
A Letter to my 16 Year Old Self
- 9 Apr 2018
I wrote this in 2010. I wouldn’t change a word of it now… Dear Iain, This could turn into a 100 page epistle, if I am not careful. As you know, you have had a perfect childhood - brought up by two loving parents in a wonderful rural environment. I know you know how lucky you...