Writing Clips

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Rod Stewart in Tenerife – review

Monday, May 18th, 2009

What’s going on in Tenerife! We might be woefully short of tourists at the moment, but it seems that all the celebs are taking advantage of the quietness to visit our shores at the same time. Or maybe there’s a celeb party going on that only those with a spread in Hello magazine know about. [...]

A real life clash of the Titans in Tenerife

Friday, May 1st, 2009

Had a bit of a clash with the Titans in Tenerife yesterday while trying to renew my residencia. Why are the people who deal with paperwork so damn awkward? Is it because they’ve been breathing in teeny particles of paper dust? Is it because they’re sick and tired of all the paper cuts they get? [...]

Jennie Bond on Tenerife

Saturday, February 14th, 2009

Well, I wasn’t totally sure what to expect when I met Jennie Bond in Tenerife last Wednesday. I think I anticipated she’d be like the Queen but with attitude. As a hardened and professional journalist (her, not me), it’s always difficult coming up with questions that aren’t banal and that she’s answered a zillion times [...]

Giant vulture attack in Tenerife!!

Thursday, October 30th, 2008

Hellfire. Sounds like a B-movie title but apparently this is what happened at the splendid (and usually safe) Jungle Park in the hills above Los Cristianos. A couple of ladies in their 50s were minding their own business watching the birds of prey show in the outdoor arena when a rather sturdy Griffin Vulture that [...]

Where the hell have you been?

Monday, October 27th, 2008

Ok, I suppose the question should be ‘Where the flamin’ heck have I been?’ Well, all over the place actually, both geographically and career-wise. Since we last spoke, several major events have ocurred – I’ve become a hotel inspector (no sniggering at the back), I’m officially a cruise writer, and my cat has grown a [...]

Tenerife’s first sitcom Re-writers

Tuesday, May 13th, 2008

Well, he of the red pen, returned our sitcom efforts with a commendable amount of red scrawl, and the potential was deemed as neither yay, nor nay, but a solid maybe. Which is better than a slap in the face with a wet carp, but not quite as good as a letter from the Director [...]

Tenerife’s first sitcom writers?

Tuesday, May 6th, 2008

Life is pretty exciting at the moment. Sometimes it can be a plain bore, a never ending succession of menial features to write, facts to check, chores to avoid and kid’s toys to mend. At the moment though, it’s EXCITING. Sorry, I shouted. I’m currently awaiting the verdict on a sitcom that I’ve co-written with [...]

Sink or Swim

Friday, October 20th, 2006

The last time I went on a cruise I lost my favourite teddy bear and the contents of my stomach to the churning briny below. Oh, and the children’s life jacket store caught fire. Unsurprisingly my desire for further shipboard experiences hadn’t exactly been burning brightly. Until now. Now I have a wife who likes [...]

Up the jungle with a Sandinista

Thursday, October 19th, 2006

Published in The Guardian, Oct, 2006 “You can swim here if you like,” said Yaró flopping into the waist-high water and hauling our boat onto a sandbank. From deep within my memory, bells were ringing about tiny jungle parasites that find no greater pleasure than swimming straight up your plumbing and co-habiting your vital organs. Plus, [...]

A Dirty Week in Spain

Sunday, February 19th, 2006

“Guiri!” the man shouted before turning a cannon and engulfing me in a cloud of white powder. I had been betrayed not by a pallid English complexion – all faces were equally blanched today – but by khaki shorts and t-shirt. Guiris (foreigners) were singled out for a particularly heavy artillery onslaught. Celebrations are often [...]

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