Football Dad Thoughts Tonda`s Troubles With less than two weeks to go before the season starts, the FA have still not announced what punishment Tonda Eckert will face in the wake of spygate. They s...

Carry On Clacton This summer the Carry On gang return for their most outrageous adventure yet, Carry On Clacton, a riot of saucy seaside chaos on the Essex coast. Sid James plays Nigel Farage, foreve...

--- A Night And Morning To Remember It has been a long time since I stayed up all night. In my teens it was a regular thing, but now in my sixties I am usually in bed by half past ten. With no work ...

Wet Leg - A Triumphant Return Wet Leg made a triumphant return to the Isle of Wight Festival last night, marking their first appearance on the main stage since 2022. Now a multi award winning act wit...

YouTube video by FootballMartin_

Jim Waygood is Coming Home — A Story Rooted in Memory, Place, and Return Every book has its own journey, and this one has been quietly growing in me for years. Jim Waygood is Coming Home began as a ...

Jim Waygood is Coming Home — A Story Rooted in Memory, Place, and Return Every book has its own journey, and this one has been quietly growing in me for years. Jim Waygood is Coming Homebegan as a s...

Reasons to Be Cheerful It’s all too easy to get dragged down by the relentless tide of bad news. Between talk of an Iran war, a looming global recession, and the ongoing cost‑of‑living crisis, the wo...

I'm a neurodivergent and disabled author and poet, and something of an artist, too. Click to read Kathryn Rossati, a Substack publication. Launched 6 months ago.

Making Plans For Nigel Before you start reading this blog I must point out this piece is not about XTC, one of the best things to come out of Swindon. I could wax lyrical about the genius songwriting...

February Frustrations February has been a month of contradictions. It was the wettest on record yet strangely one of the mildest—I'm not sure we had a single frost. Living on the Isle of Wight, it’s ...

Hello everyone, I’m back with another author interview!

I'm a neurodivergent and disabled author and poet, and something of an artist, too. Click to read Kathryn Rossati, a Substack publication. Launched 6 months ago.

An Island of Haves and Have Nots Photos appeared on Facebook this morning showing syringes and hypodermic needles scattered around a bench in a public park. Not in London under Sadiq Khan’s watch, no...

Everyday People For a town that so often feels quiet, almost suspended in its own stillness, there’s never any shortage of characters to observe. In my Ted’s Café books, the main character often rema...

Nobody Likes a Bully Nobody likes a bully. Most of us have come across one at some point in our lives — at school, at home, or later on in the workplace. School bullies were terrifying enough, and yo...

The Real Traitors Aren’t on TV As the nation obsesses over reality‑show betrayals, Westminster delivers its own plot twists — only without the entertainment value. As the country spends yet another ...

The Long, Slow Drip of a January High Street Every now and then I drift back to my working life. Not all of it was bad, and not all of it was good. The life of an independent sports retailer had a rh...

The Rise and Fall of a Sports Trade That Once Had Soul Every now and then a YouTube rabbit hole throws up something that takes you right back. For me, it was a short video about the demise of JJB Spo...

YouTube video by Lewis Pringle

A Man Without Envy For generations, my ancestors, the Pangnall family, lived and worked here as brickmakers, their world defined by clay, kiln, and the vast, shifting skies of the Solent. They we...

YouTube video by Peter Gabriel