According to the dictionary, the act of being thrifty revolves around the careful and diligent use of resources. During the excessive culture of the 80’s and the 90’s thriftiness was associated with austerity and portrayed as miserly, but as with most notions, fashions and ideals, these things often go full circle and come round again [...]

I realised the other day that I’ve spent a lot of time talking about the delights of Spain, but I’d never ventured across the border into Portugal. Part of this is because I’ve never actually been to Portugal, where as I’ve been to Spain several times. So to redress this we’re once again off on [...]

After the conclusion of the Second World War Britain, and most of the world for that matter, was in a sorry old state. During the late 1940’s most of Western Europe remained a warzone, devoid of homes and facilities; large parts of Britain had also been ravaged by Luftwaffe, leaving thousands homeless and yearning [...]

Every year in February hundreds of men wander around shops with a slightly jarred haunted look in their eyes. They know that if they don’t perform well, if they don’t pull it out of the bag as it were, then they are in trouble, deep trouble – the kind of immense, complicated trouble that you [...]