HomeViews & BlogsColumnistsLaura Davis

The drunken sing-along takes its place in history

THERE’S that slightly out-of-tune crooning usually associated with too many G&Ts, an early hours chicken biryani and alcohol-induced complete lack of shame coming from the inside of the gallery. Read

There are some benefits in simply being average

CALL me pessimistic but I’m not expecting anything interesting to happen today. Read

Rain is a rare experience shared with all of history

IT’S raining again. Great big drops chasing each other down the windowpane, weaving from side to side like five-year-olds in the school sports day sack race. Read

When it comes to flowers, you need to mind your Ps and Qs

I FEAR my sweet peas are suffering an identity crisis. They are looking decidedly peaky since I caught my boyfriend calling to them “grow little tomatoes, grow” in that tone teachers have that makes you believe whatever they are saying, even though it’s anatomically impossible to have eyes in the back of your head. Read

My dad’s quite a card – it’s a shame I can’t find one

ALL dads love the following: fishing, golfing, football and beer. This statement must be true, because the greeting card companies decree it so. Read

A magical land consigned to childhood memory

IT’S the fans I remember best, with giant fins that hummed as they whirled, spinning coffee-scented air up our passive nostrils. Read

New kind of calm as Mr Branson leaves me in a real pickle

I HAVE decided to look on the bright side. This is because a colleague, in a slightly hypocritical fashion, it has to be said, suggested that I am a moaner. Read

I never have time on my hands - or even on my wrist

"HAVE you got the time?" asked a man on the street before dashing haphazardly away like a bumblebee on speed. Read

Looking a little closer to home for holiday ideas

BARELY a few days of sunshine and the countdown to the great escape has begun. Read

Always up for a challenge – so long as it’s cheap

HERE’S the quandary: how easy is it to find something to do that you have never done before without there being a very good reason (phobias, morality, maintaining public decency . . .) for you never having attempted it? Read

The world as we know it has gone all granny scooter

WHAT fresh hell is this? Flowers losing their fragrance, Jerusalem being banned from churches and the Bognor Birdmen grounded. Read

A self-writing column would make life perfect

ROLL up, roll up. Feast your eyes on this – it’s a spectacle worthy of a PT Barnum circus, as perfectly formed as General Tom Thumb, and it could be even more lucrative than the Fiji Mermaid. Read

Insomnia brings out the absurd in all of us

‘WHY do undertakers have a preference for yellow cars?” I wonder during the early hours of the morning, after awakening from fitful sleep for the umpteenth time since I had gone to bed the night before. Read

Harking back to Wordsworth’s days in the Lakes

ON PARTICULARLY busy days, a colleague takes a moment to read missives from the Little Cube of Calm to restore office serenity. Read

There are times when I wish I didn’t know him so well

THERE has been a tune going incessantly round and round in my head like an odd sock stuck in a perpetually turning washing machine somewhere in the caverns of Hell. Read

My life’s just not miserable enough to write a book

I HAVE a confession to make. It is simply that I have no confession to make. Read

Why doesn’t the ageing process affect everyone?

‘I DON’T believe it,” insisted a friend in the tones of Victor Meldrew, with the certainty of a medieval abbot proclaiming the flatness of the Earth. Read

Teen angst can become a dodgy celebrity obsession

THE celebrity poster is a teenage bedroom staple, especially if it comes with tiny holes across the middle where it has been pulled from a magazine and traces of regular goodnight kisses at the worn patch on the lips. Read

I go weak at the knees for a well-turned phrase

‘LAURA, old bean,” hollered a colleague from his position safely out of elastic band firing range from my desk. “There’s something wrong with the Goggle.” Read

Write on, it seems the love letter is not yet dead

EN GARDE, you techno geeks and email aficionados, there’s a battle of words going on and you just might not win. Read