NEARLY choked on my afternoon cuppa. Spluttered and dribbled before disaster was eventually averted. Yorkshire’s finest it was, too. You know, the brew that guy with the accent as broad as the Dales is forever chuntering on about. Seems that the much adored novelist and regular tea drinker Jane Austen (pictured) has fallen foul of those determined to obliterate Britain’s past; those sad souls who wish to leave not a trace of history before the start of the current century. Her “crime” is a double-whammy of having enjoyed a regular brew and also dressing in clothes made of cotton, a… Continue reading

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