Minimalist décor the only answer. Forget hanging pictures on your walls. At least one of them, or even a mere detail, is sure to offend someone. And you never know who or when. They will suddenly take offence, plead harm is being done, or demand reparations for some long ago act or words. Hardly a day goes by without reports of supposedly damaged persons demanding – they rarely politely ask – immediate action to salve their injured souls. And so a portrait of the Queen has been taken off the walls of the middle common room at Oxford’s Magdalen College. Continue reading

EXCUSE the aspirated headline. My apparent descent into Cockney lingo has its reasons. As does the punning use of this Australian phrase that was rapidly popularised after being given birth by a Telstra television ad in 2002. As explained by the Urban Dictionary, it is now used when someone “is pissed off” at another person, who doesn’t necessarily need to be called Jan, for “stuffing up in a stupid way”.  Irritation and annoyance are the usual results of such actions Which is why I state I am not only far from ‘appy; I am greatly un’appy. Regularly irritated and annoyed. Continue reading