My struggle with depression was long and difficult. It’s still there in the background but modern medicine has allowed me to get it pretty much under control. I married my beautiful wife Lynne in 2008 and her love and support have made my Loonyverse a much happier...

As I wrote last time, to relieve my depression I started to create an imaginary world that I could control — in contrast to the real world which was completely out of control. The world I created was one where anything could happen: penguins who hated eating fish,...

They say that love makes the world go round. If that is true, then laughter must come a close second. For most of us, when we hear a funny joke, we can’t wait to tell it to someone else and make them laugh. I love stuff that makes me laugh: TV & (old English)...

There are people who call me a wordsmith.  (There are others who call me an idiot, but that’s another story!) A friend’s sister has a better name: word-herder. [your sister’s blog reference here if still valid] Sometimes words are malleable and you can shape them...

In my previous blog I wrote about why I love words. Today I want to tell you how that love came about. On long, cold, winter weekends in north-west England — Blackpool, to be precise — my mother would work through a book called “First Aid in English” with me. It was...