Paula Thelwell

An Olympic challenge for us to rise to the occasion

LAST weekend I reached the conclusion that 2012 was going to be a fantastic year.

Oh to be in England, now that Ben-Hur’s here

YOU really know that the seasons are out of kilter when Ben Hur is on the box and it isn’t Christmas, Easter or a Bank Holiday weekend.

Drawing the line between reverence and exploitation

WARS break out because talking fails and when they end it is the words of the poets who fought and died that seem to best sum up the horrors of armed conflict.

Go on – build a den, dam a stream, skim a stone!

THE National Trust’s latest campaign – Fifty things to do before you’re 113/4 – got me thinking. Although the world is stretched to bursting point with lists of things to do before reaching whatever landmark age or departing this mortal coil, there is some merit in these myriad suggestions.

Here’s to the summer of love – on the sports scene

ANYONE with no interest whatsoever in sporting activities is in for a tough old time this year.

Some days are special – now let’s keep it that way

THERE are times when, like the description of waning low weather front used in the soporific late-night shipping forecast, I find myself losing my identity.

Eurovision could give us a competitive advantage

DEAR reader, do you ever find your mind drifting in contemplation of the countless conundrums of everyday life? Little, yet troubling, matters such as why, even allowing for freshly caught fish being a perishable commodity, a local fishmonger’s van chose to tailgate the trusty Clio up the eastern slope of Rue à Don last Saturday?

It’s our language – so let’s put the accent on accuracy

IN the 1980s, when the western world waited with bated breath to discover who shot JR Ewing, Australians were more interested in graffiti.

Danke, Herr Benz – now look what you’ve started

THEORETICALLY we can lay the blame for Islanders’ startlingly reliance on motor vehicles at the door of an ingenious Neolithic ancestor who invented the wheel.

No one should even think that they’re indispensible

SAXON N White Kessinger was an award-winning American writer and poet who departed this mortal coil in January 2010.

Help your local shop and pay with cash, not cards

YOU would think in this day and age of instant communication that the simple task of changing an address could be completed in the click of a mouse.

Sometimes the States go off in totally the wrong direction

THERE are times when I am convinced that I reside in cloud cuckoo land.