Tag Archives: Yule

The Intel Quiz: Now where was I?

I WAS IN JERUSALEM. It’s all coming back to me now. Not Jerusalem as in William Blake Jerusalem. Not Jerusalem as in Israel/Palestine. No.

Jerusalem in Rathbone Place, Fitzrovia. I arrived in a timely fashion only to find that because I was the only person from TG Daily there, I had to be formed into a team.

Luckily, Hill & Knowlton saw that I seemed to know the managing director of Intel UK – one Graham Palmer – and they shuffled me off to a table with five – or was it six – people that worked for the British Broadcasting Corporation (BBC).

Last time this happened at an Intel Yule Quiz, there was me, Paul Hales and Martin Veitch and we came a very close second to the people from the Daily Mail – seemed to be dozens of them – a very competitive lot.

The good thing is all the BBC journalists are members of the National Union of Journalists (NUJ). We didn’t win. I don’t think. They were a fun lot though. Where’s Jill Franklin when you need her.

The Wood Pigeon escapes me snapping him

JUST OUTSIDE my tiny back yard is a tremendous Holly Bush – it was redolent with berries, just in time for Yuletide.

When I go out there, this huge Wood Pigeon sits there avoiding the thorns and snaffling up the berries.

It doesn’t care about me, it cares not for the thorns on the Holly Bush. I could reach it with my good arm and cook it for Yule. Obviously I would not do that.

But every  time I try and snap it from above or from below, the Wood Pigeon gets in a terrible flap. Only in Oxford. The robins and the wrens here are tame. There’s Ivy out there, too.  ♦