Derek Jones

A year is a long time: The last time we headed to the attic to dust off our baubles, Cameron was Prime Minister and Boris was Mayor of London, the EU Referendum wouldn’t be announced for another two months and the bookies were giving Donald J Trump a (generous) 2% chance of becoming the next President of the United States. The first sign that things were starting to get a bit weird was when Leicester City climbed to the top of the Premier League, but back then we knew with complete certainty that it wouldn’t last. We settled into our festive break safe in the knowledge that all was just as it should be. I don’t need to tell you what happened next! If you find yourself in a few years’ time struggling with the ‘What was the Year?’ round in your local pub quiz, my advice is simple - just say 2016! For travel it’s been yet another year of geopolitical challenges. I’m not sure if I can remember exactly when terrorist attacks stopped being exceptional events and became part of the...

Some products lend themselves to very highly targeted marketing opportunities. I’m thinking here of the sort of things that end up being advertised on small posters above men’s urinals in motorway service station toilets. Currently filling this particular marketing spot is a poster featuring three naked men, each holding a hat over his Cox and Kings. Well, two of them are holding the hat; the middle man’s hat appears to be levitating of its own accord, supported we can only imagine by his very own medically assisted, erm… hat stand. This thought was running around my head as I was having my hair cut last week. The usual - a number three at the back and sides, and shorten the top to match. Simple haircuts need simple tools and so my barber comes simply equipped with a comb, a good pair of scissors, an electric trimmer and a hairdryer. The hairdryer by the way is not for drying, it’s for blowing any stray (mostly grey) hairs off my shoulders when he’s finished. Notably miss...