The debonair Basil Marigold's

The Winner of the RIBA award for most outstanding international work by a member of RIBA has been awarded. RIBA are the Royal Institute of British Architects. And within this group there are some stand out Architects. It is a field of art and design I have loved since I took my work experience at school working for a small architecture studio in Devon for two weeks. It seemed a wheeze to actually get paid for drawing but as it got closer to deciding what to do at University I kind of dipped out of Architecture as I wasn't convinced I had the necessary drawing talent to combine with what I can picture in my head. This has always frustrated me that I can see things in my head that I can't translate to paper. I am not without talent, but have never been satisfied with the level it's at. It's on my retirement list to remedy. I still am fascinated by architecture and design, it gives me a cheap thrill every time I see the genius of a human mind exploring in construction and

I live in the North. It is a land where coldness rules and is a place that the Vikings invaded often because the weather is quite Scandinavian and they like pie. A small known fact about the Vikings was their fondness for pies. But I digress. Here is a photo taken today of my alarm clock. As you can make out it also indicates the temperature. I like gadgety things, even at the level of alarm clocks, sad but true. My point is that this is kept in the shade in the bedroom, not in the garden nor on any windowsill and still it reads 25 degrees. Now I am not one to grumble through the winter begging for the sunshine to return. It always amuses me that the months of winter makes my mind blank out the whole notion that I also suffer from Hayfever during the summer. It is the saddest season as I tend to cry through it so it's probably the best time for me to watch sad films as I can disguise the tears and excuse them with the hayfever experience. But where I do struggle is with the follow

Every now and again my grandmother says something that if I was drinking tea, would make me spit it out in a bemused, comedy shock.The world cup, for those who haven't yet noticed, is in South Africa this year. While watching a game my Nannar turned to me and said, 'That player must have played yesterday, as he's being subbed again.' I replied, what? Not really paying attention at all to what she was saying, not in detail anyway. 'Who is?' I reply to which Nannar said, that man Hublot, been subbed again. Now I do know a fair bit about football and this name seemed one I wasnt aware of. Could have been Swiss or French player I thought. So I decided to pay a little more attention. At this point Nannar then said, 'oh, he's being subbed again.' Now I knew something was a little wrong here, so watched what she was looking at and it was this; Then, the slow dawning realisation that may Nannar has confused the electronic board, used for extr

You have the fortune to come across a couple of tracks off a music album that lifts it from good to great. For those of you who are aware of the great work of the Divine Comedy then you'll understand their quirky, but wittily written songs, which can be a form of divine comedy. The new album, called 'There goes the Knighthood',  and while listening to this online two tracks stood out for me as musically inspired and arguably the best songs you'll here this year as long as you don't like JLS or Cheryl Cole, because that's where the real talent lies.But if you'd like a bit of weirdo non-manufactured pop, here is complete banker!