In some fearful circumstances, doctors will look for your vital signs. In the current state of the world there are other signs of life  and “bons mots,” as  the French would say. In France, the body that caretook, if that’s caretake in the past tense, is the Academie Francaise, but sadly it can no longer…

r Every year the British announce their New Year Honours list in recognition of a lifetime of service for almost everything except fixing the kitchen sink. We all know a Knighthood is a Sir and the equivalent for women is a Damehood or a Dame.  This year Dame Mary Quant gets another plaudit  – CH…

Remember the good old bad old days? We all smoked, sometimes behind the bike shed at school. It’s a no-no now.  Movies dating back pre-1990s had police detectives, spies and gangsters all puffing away madly. Smokey bars, clubs, casinos and crooks’ offices were the norm. For atmosphere, twirls of blueish smoke rose from ashtrays. Not any…

An old African saying goes like this: I am not the one It means denial. Did you take my bicycle? I am not the one  It also shifts the blame. The British are blaming Putin for all their strikes and troubles. Grant Shapps, a senior Tory Secretary of State, put it this way the other…

Once upon a time here at home in Zimbabwe a swap meant a fair swap – in the playground, two marbles for two crayons, one football card for another, licorice sweets for toffees, unless the school bully has had a hand in it. Later on, we swapped phone numbers. Today fair play exists neither in…

If you saw my offering on schools in Zimbabwe, here are some of Winston Churchill’s quotations, wisdoms or otherwise that pupils at Churchill School might enjoy. (Sources credit:everywhere.)      I am fond of pigs. Dogs look up to us, cats look down on us, pigs treat us as equals.      An appeaser is…

  Mr Churchill and Mr Roosevelt enjoying humour at the height of WWII. Churchill apparently could be quite an amusing fellow. Here it looks like FDR is having a good belly laugh. Was it a somewhat risqué joke? The two men never got on well with each other; they were very different personalities. Comparatively straight-laced…

In parts of the English speaking world builders and plumbers in loose trousers, when bending down for tricky tasks, show what’s known as ‘builders bum,’ or more politely rear-end cleavage. It comes in all shapes and sizes on building sites everywhere. This new dress shows how babes in the fashion industry can indeed do it…

You can buy false bookshelves these days by the metre in length. Commentators and experts being interviewed on TV or Zoom and stuff almost always have books behind them to impress viewers. What happened here? Chris Wilkins doesn’t seem to worry if he appears not to be a bookworm or he hasn’t got around to…

With all that’s going on in the world today, it might be time to look at peculiarities, the off-beat and the humour prevailing in past and present times. Exactly 50 years ago Ugandan dictator Idi Amin expelled tens of thousands of Asians from the country. They were bloodsuckers in the economy, according to him. As…