David Jenkins' weblog

Life’s too short to drink instant coffee

Category: Uncategorized

  • Jul 16: photo of the month

    Jul 16: photo of the month

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    Sometimes the best photos are the easiest ones because someone’s already done the work for you. And at the same time you can make a statement.

  • What’s wrong with the right glass?

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    It happened again last night. I ordered a glass of pretty good wine in a nice restaurant which served us a really good meal. But my wine came in a glass just big enough for the quantity of wine which I’d ordered (250ml as it happens). So no scope for swirling and no opportunity for…

  • Yesterday wasn’t a great day

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    Yesterday began with the dawn chorus waking me at 0400. Suited me fine because I wanted to pick up the referendum results. I’d gone to bed with the Remain campaign slightly confident and Nigel Farage suggesting that it would win by a whisker. Not so. I switched on the TV to get him talking about…

  • May 16: photo of the month

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    In terms of photo quality this is nothing exceptional but I loved the silhouette of the woman with the hijab and the colours remind me of those in the paintings of Dutch painters like Vermeer and Frans Hals. I took the photo downstairs at Don Pasquale in Cambridge so it was pretty low light. I…

  • What is it with blokes in the gym?

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    I‘ve been using a gym somewhere or another since the early 70s. The first one was the Clark Hatch Fitness Centre in Tokyo. It was on the ground floor of a block of flats I stayed at so that made it rather convenient. After that came Hatch & Turk in Hong Kong when I lived…

  • Polemics weekend: 9/10 Apr 16

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    @camlitfest @georgemonbiot @owenjones84 @ken4london

  • Trulli & Sassi: Mar/Apr 16

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    We’re in the habit of taking a short break somewhere around the Mediterranean in the Spring or Autumn to escape the colder weather back home and at the same time to enjoy a little more of other countries’ cultures, cuisines and histories. This year we jetted off to Puglia and Basilicata down the bottom end…

  • Great teachers part 2

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    Hawarden Grammar School is of course no more. A victim of the comprehensive education revolution which was right when it came but before that it meant that those of us who went to the Grammar school got a pretty good education.

  • Global teacher prize

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    There was an item on the radio this evening about the global teacher prize (www.globalteacherprize.org) and Stephen Hawking was talking about a maths teacher who inspired him. It got me thinking about my teachers. First off: my primary school teachers. I started school at Dee Road Infants School and then moved through the fence to…

  • 5 reasons I like living in (actually near) Cambridge

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    I’ve lived in Cambridge twice. Once as a student/abortive PhD student in the 1960s. And now. When we came back in 1996 it didn’t really seem that different to the place which I’d left 25 years ago. But in the 20 years since it has changed considerably as it’s become one of the UK’s fastest…