Lezard

Latest News for: Lezard

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Weighing the options in a country where nothing works any more

New Statesman 17 Apr 2024

In the end I did manage to see some of the cricket at the Hove ground. on the Sunday, I sat in front of the pavilion drinking Harvey’s and watched Sussex pile on the runs against Northants ... Especially when I say I am not Nicholas Lezard ... [See also.

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The continuous rain is driving me mad

New Statesman 10 Apr 2024

I have not yet looked into the Lezard DNA but I am pretty confident that I was not made for such a climate – indeed, the French verb “lézarder” means “to bask” and it doesn’t look like anyone’s going to be doing any basking any time soon ... [See also.

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Never meet your heroes – unless your hero is Jah Wobble

New Statesman 03 Apr 2024

So, how was your Easter? Because of the obligations and vagaries of magazine production, I’m writing this before it’s even happened ... So instead I’ll tell you about something nice that happened to me during my week off ... This put a spring in my step.

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Toast or a shower? My great energy dilemma

New Statesman 20 Mar 2024

Last weekend was the memorial party for my friend P-J, whom I wrote about a few weeks ago ... There were friends there I hadn’t seen in decades and it was a delight to be with them again and have a catch-up ... Today things seem to be a bit better ... [See also.

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When your friend is stabbed, your own problems become mere annoyances

New Statesman 13 Mar 2024

I left you all on a cliffhanger last week, saying something terrible had happened to a friend of mine and now I can tell you what it was. my friend N— was stabbed ... Phone calls from her are punctuated by howls and gasps ... The Next Generation ... .

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As a deadline approaches, I become a master of distraction

New Statesman 06 Mar 2024

The one I was to enjoy for free in return for writing 1,000+ words on “How I Discovered My Purpose” ... If monkey get banana before monkey press red button, monkey not feel like press red button. Banana good, pressing red button pain in bum ... It was hard.

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Hail to the Brighton bus driver: he could be me

New Statesman 28 Feb 2024

Lunch last Sunday at the Regency in Brighton. my favourite restaurant ... K— hasn’t done this kind of thing before and expects an evening of struggle. “Go on, have another,” I say. “It’ll stop you overthinking it.”. “No, I really can’t ... (Younger readers.

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My personal Blue Monday involved mountains of couscous and Shakespeare

New Statesman 21 Feb 2024

They say Blue Monday – which this year fell on 15 January – is the most miserable day of the year, but from where I’m sitting Monday 12 February knocked it into a cocked hat ... OK, it wasn’t raining, but it felt like it ... Jackpot ... (Look it up ... [See also.

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I crave human contact, mainly with someone in Sky’s technical department

New Statesman 14 Feb 2024

As I type these words, I am listening to a selection of “easy listening classics” while waiting to get through to the customer services department of Sky Broadband. I have been trying to get through to a human being for about a week now ... Update.

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My health scare is over, so now there is space for all my other worries

New Statesman 07 Feb 2024

But you can understand why I did worry ... I said “no” but that was only because to have said “yes, but only my paternal grandfather, who was the only Lezard who has borne that name who never smoked or drank a drop” might have sounded smug ... my belt.

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The reward for looking after my mother? A dose of norovirus

New Statesman 31 Jan 2024

I am at my friends Ben and Janine’s, having Sunday lunch. They live on the 16th floor, and I have a fine view of Storm Isha working herself up into a lather against the walls of the marina, about a mile away. The phone rings. It’s my brother ... I do.

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Confronting mortality on a 5A bus to the hereafter

New Statesman 24 Jan 2024

To the Hove Polyclinic for an X-ray. Polyclinic. where you go when you’re sick as a parrot. I made this joke up myself, and that’s why I’m paid the big bucks. I’m not sick as a parrot but I could be if the X-ray doesn’t go how I want it to ... No I haven’t.

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His quiet charisma bowled me over, and he became a friend for life

New Statesman 14 Jan 2024

My friend P-J died last week and I haven’t been able to think about much else. So I’m going to have to write about him. How he died isn’t particularly relevant but it was a long time coming, and we’d known for some time that the end was near ... [See also.

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Making Christmas dinner, I ponder Nigella and what might have been

New Statesman 10 Jan 2024

And so our little break is over, that time, in an inversion of the usual practice at Christmas, when the New Statesman wraps its regular contributors up in tissue paper, and puts them in a box in the loft ... That year was somewhat awkward ... [See also.

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Cooking for others gives me purpose. That doesn’t mean I enjoy it

New Statesman 07 Dec 2023

A busy time. I had to get everything done by Wednesday evening because I had volunteered to cook Thanksgiving dinner at my mother’s in London ... I had a brainwave in September and said ... She isn’t ... It’s a shame, really ... [See also ... The cooking ... Plus stuffing.