A night on a hospital ward with Paddy Leigh Fermor
The catheter stung exquisitely when I lay down. So I stood up. All night I stood by my hospital bed,…
I’m hoping and praying for a continuation of potency
I’ve had a medical procedure that is ‘likely’ to leave me impotent. A nurse is coming around dishing out Tramadol,…
Watching car crash compliations with my grandson
My boy was downstairs cooking Sunday roast. Earlier, I had been clambering about on a woodpile, stepped awkwardly, and twisted…
Lord Rennard's hand-brushing is nothing. I'll tell you what true violation is
‘In my opinion,’ says Alistair Webster QC, author of the Liberal Democrats’ internal report into Lord Rennard’s droit de seigneur-style…
My night in Zambia with Ian Dury
Every time I hear that song ‘Sex & Drugs & Rock & Roll’ played on the radio, I think, Lord,…
Rolling back the years in a stretched Hummer
My first ride in a stretch Hummer. I haven’t lived, I now realise. The prodigious, ridiculous thing, tricked out in…
Memories of a departed dog — and of a different me
I shifted a chest of drawers that hadn’t been moved for years, and found an old photograph lying among the…
Riding back from Scotland with Ron Burgundy in the privy
When the ticket collector asked to see my ticket, I took the opportunity to ask what time my connection left…
The joy of showing my grandson how to wield an axe
Until a fortnight ago there was a healthy, graceful, 70ft-specimen of Eucalyptus dalrympleana — or mountain gum — in the…
Jeremy Clarke: When public vice improves private virtue
So I go to the all-night house party with my rolled-up yoga mat under my arm. Nice house, middle-class crowd,…
Jeremy Clarke: Get your yoga mat - you've pulled
I went from the first yoga session of the New Year to the pub. I felt ever so noble. The…
Jeremy Clarke: If you haven’t read We’re Going on a Bear Hunt, you haven’t lived
Christmas shopping in Waterstones, I came across a memory card game called We’re Going on a Bear Hunt. I snatched…
Jeremy Clarke: it’s 3 a.m. in London’s bohemian quarter and not a reasonably priced drink in sight
It’s a disgrace! I went up to London from Devon, a hick up from the sticks, to Annabel’s in Berkeley…
Jeremy Clarke: I'm a fake. The cannabis tells me so
Can it be that the one single agreeable thing about getting old is that one loses one’s pot paranoia? No.…
Low life
The beer garden at the back of the pub was empty, save one woman sitting alone at a table contemplating…
Jeremy Clarke: Why has Ed Miliband hidden his comic genius from the world?
Theresa May must have been a little disappointed. Her government limousine rolled silently to a halt at the rear entrance…
Jeremy Clarke: Can't we even manage a proper hurricane?
In the Spar shop I overheard someone talking anxiously to the woman on the till about an approaching ‘hurricane’. I…
Jeremy Clarke’s date with a plank fancier
We’d being trying to meet for lunch for weeks, but always something had got in the way and either she…
Jeremy Clarke: Running into Rachel
I’d been trying to curb the habit — one day at a time — and then I felt a bit…
My sky-blue 50mg Viagra tablet fell on to the floor. ‘Do you need to get that?’ she said - Jeremy Clarke
I’d booked a private one-to-one session with her for an hour on the afternoon of the day she flew in.…
Jeremy Clarke: Heaven is afternoon tea with Suzi Quatro
A surprisingly convivial atmosphere prevailed in the second-class carriage of the fast London-bound train when I stepped aboard at Bodmin.…
Jeremy Clarke: Morality in children depresses me
I went to a Tibetan yoga all-day workshop. Tibetan yoga is very simple. It would be hilariously so if it…
Morning after
I woke up in the foetal position, on my back, on Trev’s tiny sofa, with an old curtain over me.…
Jeremy Clarke: Taki makes me feel like dancing
‘Jeremy! Jeremy! I can’t believe it! There’s no bloody booze!’ I’d walked into the music room where Elgar and Fauré…
Jeremy Clarke: How to cheat at a pub quiz without even knowing it
One evening last week, I trotted over to the caravan site’s clubhouse to use the wifi and pick up emails.…
