TALKING of parsimony, my brother-in-law is English to the hilt but clearly there is a Scotsman inside him fighting to get out.
On a recent visit he informed me he was popping into town and asked if there was anything I needed. Forget water, forget wood for the fire, forget bread, my one staple without which I cannot exist is coffee and my supply had run out.
During lockdown, I noticed that my favourite coffee disappeared. It was one variety from a well-known global brand and had some addictive degree of chocolate or cocoa in it.
I had drunk nothing but this nectar since teenage years and was so welded to it I would bring a jar or two with me on holiday, and that is a fess I do not make lightly.
Grieving heavily at the loss of my favourite, I tried any number of new brands but none came close, despite the significant price of most of them.
I was at the end of my tether. It is impossible to explain to a non-coffee drinker how much I look forward to my morning brew and that the delicious prospect of that first hot sip of roasted, strong, steaming, chocolatey brew is the last thing on my mind before lights out.
So off he trogged into the Burgh and returned with the cheapest jar of supermarket own-brand coffee he could find. And I will admit that I ungratefully sneered for a split second before I thanked him and handed over the couple of quid it cost.
But lo! It is majestic! It is a more than adequate replacement for my dearly departed decoction. And that it is dirt cheap makes it taste all the more perfect.
YOU will rarely find me parked in front of the TV because I always believe it won’t take long to find something else much more productive to do.
I will occasionally watch a good film or a decent documentary, but the prospect of binge-watching an entire series just isn’t in my skill set at all.
But enter stage left the arms-dealing rip roarer, the Night Manager. This is easily the best thing I’ve clapped eyes on in decades.
And just before sitting down to watch the second series, we decided that it might be prudent to watch the first series again. And it was even better than I remembered.
And what made it live for me was not intellectual beefcake Tom Hiddleston, nor even the immaculate chameleon Tom Hollander, but noted light-hearted character actor Hugh Lawrie in a very menacing straight role as the gritty Dickie Roper.
At the end of the day, as we start the second oeuvre, it must be noted that both series come from a book written by John Le Carré, and that is a head start of Olympic proportions.
HAVING served in the military for more than 30 years I feel I have some qualification to comment on global conflicts.
This week marks the fourth anniversary of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine in what President Putin then entitled a special military operation.
He famously declared that victory would come in a matter of days but as the conflict enters its fifth year, there is little sign of an end to the carnage.
Indeed Russian advances are measured in a few metres. Ukraine’s losses are estimated to be between 500,000 and 600,000 casualties and Russia’s an epic 1.2 million. These are losses not seen anywhere since World War Two.
Ukraine’s soldiers have an understandable desire to defend their homeland against the invader, but there is little appetite among Russia’s young men to head west and join the fight. Conscripts are being rounded up by the police and sent to war.
Given the scale of Moscow’s casualty list and the numbers returning to their mothers in coffins, many apparently executed by their own superiors for refusing to fight, I cannot help but think it is the home front where Putin will lose the war first.
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