I’ve often thought that when it comes to drinking toasts there’s invariably something sentimental about them. “Well, obviously,” I hear you say, as they’re usually conceived with an arm around a best friend and a bellyful of wine. Being a keen amateur enthusiast in the life of libation, I’ve collected in my head (but first…
It is a little-known fact that the jetski, like the tractor and the iron lung, was invented by Stalin – though on closer inspection the roots of these machines in a Communist dictatorship are easily discernible. Jetniks, as their riders were originally called, claimed that access to the seas was free to all, and that…
Noel’s flood is a joke by Geoffrey Chaucer in his Miller’s Tale – part of the Canterbury set. It’s invented by the young wife of an older carpenter, and her would-be lodger lover to persuade him to set up barrels hanging from his roof rafters into which they should climb at night, to be sure…
The triumph of the sails over the horse: a yachtsman’ personal view on Yachting versus Polo. In the grand tapestry of leisure activities reserved for the elite, two pastimes stand out as symbols of affluence, grandeur, and, most importantly, an inflated sense of superiority over the masses: yachting and polo. Both sports are closely associated…