Over the years, the idea seems to have grown up that brightly coloured flowers are vulgar, and that the only flowers to be admitted to the walled garden of good taste are discreet and pastel-hued.
From Craig Brown
For some reason, it is always thrilling to spot your home town in the news.
When I was a boy, I used to stay with a school friend in Bexhill, in Sussex, which was then well-known for being the town with more oldies than any other. Aged ten, I felt slightly embarrassed by this, though I'm not sure why.
In real life, nothing would be more tedious than trailing around after two strangers as they went house-hunting in Hertfordshire. But for some reason, television is more compelling than real life.
One of the tricks of life is to have sense and money in roughly equal proportions.
Whenever television cameras are interviewing people in their homes, I tend to look over their shoulders and have a good snoop at their living rooms. I am always astonished at how clean they all look, with nothing out of place or unnecessary or dropped down any old how.
Andrew Lloyd Webber is one of those odd moth-like creatures who seem to combine extreme discomfort with the spotlight with an unstoppable compulsion to leap into it.
The news is increasingly full of mismatched people saying daft things to one another.
The British love of queuing and discomfort and being bossed around seems to have found a new outlet in the pop festival.
When cars honk and hoot and drunks squeeze out of car windows and scream, you can be sure that football is in the air.
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