Author Archives: Paul

To Loftus Road for a benefit match for Stan Bowles, my boyhood hero and the greatest footballer ever to play for Queens Park Rangers. In the 1970s, we worshipped Stan Bowles but still only 68, he’s now in the cruel grip of severe dementia. So this pre-season friendly against Bournemouth was to raise money for […]

…..was a work colleague named Gary Duckworth. I was eighteen and Gary was the first openly gay man I’d ever met. Where I came from, calling someone “a poof” was a grievous insult, and a playground punch up would inevitably ensue. Gary’s demeanour was sober, thoughtful and “normal”. Such was my ignorance and naivety, I […]

No, me neither. I’m not sure they really exist. And I’m certainly not saying they should. Ah, but surely they must exist. How about the woman who wrote this song? Thing is, most heart wrenching paeans to unrequited love are written by men about women. If such a song is recorded by a female vocalist, […]

Yesterday, I went to meet a director to discuss a script at his house in Sussex. At the station, I gave the cab driver the postcode and fifteen minutes later, he dropped me at the end of a dirt track and assured me that it was “Just down there”. It wasn’t. There was nothing down […]

I hope not. Matt Parker is not a real person. It’s how I describe people who are either blissfully unaware or selfish (probably the latter) and will park a car at the side of the road, leaving half a space in front of them and half a space behind. If they’d just go a couple […]

….has proved beyond any doubt that he is the greatest tennis player of all time. This afternoon, he won a record eighth Wimbledon men’s singles titles. Federer brought sublime levels of skill and grace to a sport that for too long had been increasingly dependent on big serves and brute force. He is of course, […]

Apple launched the iPhone. One of the most brilliant, successful and influential products ever invented. But the real genius was how they marketed it. An iPhone, as we all know, isn’t really a phone – it’s a computer. However, the public had never really taken to the idea of a pocket computer. The Palm Pilot […]

On a coach obviously. All the children in one place, safe and simple. Not any more. Schoolkids in London go on the tube. They’re noisy and unruly – as they should be, they’re on a school trip – and the teachers look so stressed. Their charges are all clad in identical hi-viz tabards, so it […]

A requiem mass for my friend Lucy Westmore at the Catholic Church on the Fulham Road. I loved Lucy Westmore. Everyone did. I was lucky enough to know her for more than 30 years and work with her at two different places. She was unlucky enough to have a wonderful life cut short by cancer. […]

My dad was kind, humble and devoutly Catholic. A lovely man but not really a role model. My brother in law Trevor was different. Unconstrained by Catholicism, Trevor was a bit flash. But in a good way. He and my sister Anita married as teenagers and moved out to a brand new 1970s house in […]