New Year Honours

With predictable inappropriateness the UK's list of honours for New Year's Day 2018 was announced two days ago. Highlights include: the musicians Barry Gibb (CBE) and Ringo Starr (MBE); Helen Sharman (OBE), Britain's first astronaut and passionate promoter of science and technology; and our former deputy Prime Minister Nick Clegg, who gets a well-deserved knighthood.…Read more New Year Honours

Photograph

There has been an outbreak of man flu at Crotchety Mansions. In the interests of public safety Crotchety Man has cancelled all public engagements for the time being. A number of restrictions have been put in place on current activities, too. This Track of the Week was chosen simply because it was the stand-out track…Read more Photograph

The Fairie Round

An article in New Scientist about the Voyager 1 space craft caught the Crotchety eye the other day. It reports that the primary thrusters that keep Voyager's antenna pointing towards Earth are beginning to fail. Voyager does have backup thrusters but they had not been fired since 1980 so NASA's engineers did not know if they would…Read more The Fairie Round

August & September

Donning his pith helmet and carrying his elephant gun Crotchety Man went out hunting for tracks on the theme of autumn. It proved to be a disappointing expedition. To my mind autumn is a gloriously uplifting time of year and yet all the songs relating to the third quarter of the calendar seem to…Read more August & September