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Articles by Elaine Smith

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About Elaine Smith

A single mother of a teenager, Elaine will be filing reports from the family battlefront. More Posts

Shurely not?

Over the last couple of years, I have to confess, I’ve grown a slight liking for sushi food. Before that I’d heard of it from time to time – in the 1980s my brother worked in Japan for a couple of years and developed a taste for it – but the thought of eating raw food had always rather put [...]

July 16, 2017 // 0 Comments

Nothing much, but one of those things …

Yesterday afternoon I just happened to be visiting friends in Richmond. As I walked across the bridge I noticed groups of by-passers looking over the side. This was plainly because something of unusual interest or amusement had happened and prompted a spontaneous pedestrian version of [...]

March 14, 2017 // 0 Comments

Watching the world go by

A few years ago now my father ‘let go’ his ancient gardener and faithful retainer because – to be perfectly honest – he had passed his sell-by date. By then he was approaching the age of eighty and his ability to work during his weekly visits had reduced to little more than riding the [...]

February 27, 2016 // 0 Comments

Family complications

Yesterday – Sunday – my sister rang shortly after 10.00am. “Have you spoken to Dad today?” “No – why do you ask? “Because I’ve tried to call him this morning, he’s not answering …” In another situation one might have been referencing déjà vu, or possibly the [...]

August 3, 2015 // 0 Comments

It never gets any easier

I was talking with my cousin yesterday about our surviving parents, who by chance happen to live quite close to one another – her mother is in her ninety-third year and my father approaching his 90th birthday. Both high-achievers in their heyday, they are still relatively ‘on the ball’ and [...]

July 20, 2015 // 0 Comments

Still Alice (review)

As someone who is not a regular or frequent movie-viewer either at home or in the cinema, I was nevertheless moved yesterday to take a trip to my local multi-complex in order to join the proverbial three men and a dog to watch Still Alice, the drama in which Julianne Moore gives a BAFTA and [...]

March 25, 2015 // 0 Comments

What if?

Princess Diana would have been 53 on July 1st and I found myself reflecting upon how little mention is made of a woman who so dominated the headlines in her life and what sort of legacy she left. Priness Kate would long ago have surpassed her as a cover photo but I suspect Diana, who failed her O [...]

July 23, 2014 // 0 Comments

Timeless

Here’s an example of how the internet gives newspapers worthwhile opportunities that the mere printed page cannot, the subject being a delightful time-lapse video of a girl going from babyhood to the age of fourteen – as available on today’s website of the DAILY/SUNDAY [...]

April 13, 2014 // 0 Comments

What’s so wrong about showing people as they are?

There is a minor media storm currently doing the rounds about the Facebook group entitled Women Who Eat On Tubes. [I should add here that – having long ago given up trying to be ‘up to date’ or technologically literate – I am not 100% sure what a Facebook group is and in any event have [...]

April 8, 2014 // 0 Comments

It happens, sometimes …

Just occasionally, and not often – when tuned to the television or radio broadcasting media – the viewer or listener gains the sense that he or she is being exposed to something ‘live’ on air which might possible later make a news story of its own. I’ve had two such examples in [...]

December 24, 2013 // 0 Comments

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