Long live the high street
This month’s column comes to you from Oxford. As the Isle of Wight double-knots its bonnet ribbon in preparation for gale force winds, I’m sat in a coffee shop in
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Wake up and smell the coffee
Back in the day, I studied industrial design. I learned how to do technical drawing, made prototypes of products in a well-equipped workshop and was taught about the history of
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Is there life on Mars? Who cares?
One sunny Sunday in 1969 I was participating in a leapfrog competition when my mother popped out of the house and made her way across to us bouncing children. I
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Living in electric dreams
When I was a nipper, there was much talk of pollution and acid rain, damage caused by aerosol propellants and litter. Inspired, I started a Womble Club to encourage my
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Living in Groundhog Day (and tomorrow we’ll do it all again)
You all know that joke by now. Q. How many folks from the Isle of Wight does it take to change a light bulb? A. CHANGE?? We don’t like change!
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A swelling organ and a hamper of parsnips
On the evening of Wednesday 10 April 1991 I went with my landlady to All Saints Church Hall, Ryde to hear the Isle of Wight Electronic Organ Society’s guest organist
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Six degrees of Jonathan Bacon
Shortly before I moved to the Isle of Wight in 1990, I went to a house party in Portsmouth. It was heaving with the usual crowd of art students, sundry
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Madcap travel on the Isle of Wight
My bicycle is slower than your car. It’s not necessarily deliberate, it’s because it is powered by a pair of human thighs and a single middle-aged heart – so please
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Steppin out on Newport leisure strip
Ages ago, I asked a geek to set-up my home computer network to block the Daily Mail website. Sure, the occasional zelebrity wardrobe malfunction was moderately amusing, and who doesn’t
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Touched by your presence, here
Have you ever seen a ghost? The Isle of Wight is reputed to be one of Britain’s most haunted places, and certainly has some exceptionally historic and mysterious nooks where
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