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Barbara Fisher

Barbara Fisher

Bm@il: Life on Mars, salt on Jaffa Cakes

CAN someone tell me exactly when paying tax became voluntary? I’ve just had a reminder to pay my tax by the end of this month if I wish to do it online – which I do.Read

Bm@il: Face-to-face in Nave with eminent scholar

HEARING that Sir Rhodes Boyson had died, at the age of 87, took me back to the days of one-to-one public interviews in Uxbridge, which I’m sure many of you will remember.Read

Bm@il:Have your cake and eat it for breakfast, 'lanch' or 'sapper'

I’VE just read an interesting article about the names people use to describe their eating rituals. Do you have three meals a day? If so, what do you call them?Read

Bm@il: Unlike my lamb, John The Baptist's head ended up on the plate

TODAY, Wednesday, August 29, is the feast day for the beheading of John the Baptist, but I don’t suppose you’ll be celebrating. I certainly won’t.Read

Bm@il: Vain quest for a pint, a poor plughman's - and not a packet for my peanut

WHAT has happened to all the British pubs? If there had been an Olympic challenge for watering holes we’d never have got a Team GB together.Read

Bm@il: Mr F's Olympian huff cannot quench my flame of achievement

IT’S countdown to the Olympics Opening Ceremony on Friday, and how I’d love to be there to enjoy the spectacle – all the synchronised leg-kicking and high-wire communal singing, or whatever they’ve got lined up for us in the Olympic stadium.Read

No such thing as the wrong weather: just the wrong country

SO, IS it wellies and woollies this week, or sandals and T-shirts? Forget the climate change debate; I reckon we are the experts on this subject, not the scientists.Read

Chips, chaps and the modern matriarch

IT IS always great to bump into Gazette readers – and I do, a lot ­– but I was particularly amused to hear that Bm@il has become a regular part of one couple’s Friday night ritual.Read

Whichever way you cut it, I'm always ahead in the style stakes

WHENEVER I’m asked to list my hobbies, Mr F always says I should put ‘hair’ at the top of the list.Read

Here's to dads: we'd be nowhere without them

I HAVE just been hissed and spat at during a sunny walk by Fray’s River in Uxbridge. I hadn’t noticed the pair of swans who were hidden by the river bank, but I soon realised they were protecting three fluffy cygnets who were nervously circling their parents.Read

Bm@ail: We made for Hay - hope the sun shone

DID you have a jolly jubilee weekend? And did you make the most of those two extra days off work?Read

Bm@il: Is on demand TV the closest we'll get to time travel?

WHEN you have planned a relaxing evening in, and you find that most of the TV programmes are repeats, how do you react? Disappointment, maybe irritation – or do you just shrug your shoulders and play some music, or read a book instead?Read

Bm@il: Parenting vouchers may be a good idea

I DON’T think we should pooh-pooh the government’s idea of £100 vouchers for parenting classes which became available this month in three test areas.Read

Bm@il: Titanic still causing an impression, post-Costa

ONE hundred years ago the Titanic set off for New York. As a band played, excited passengers waved from the decks.The self-styled ‘most luxurious liner in the world’ was never to return to Southampton.Read

Bm@il: My nightmare brought to life at Maori show

I ALWAYS marvel at people who volunteer to go up on stage. As a child, I shrivelled to a shadow when the audience was scanned for likely suspects, but luckily there were always plenty of takers.Read

Bm@il: Cruising through other cultures can leave you feeling queasy - it's good to be home

WE ARE now back on dry land, following the world cruise I mentioned last week. It’s great to be home, but difficult to adjust after more than three months away, particularly after being in the tropics.Read

Bm@il: Oranges were not the fruit at all for us Bournville girls

YOU know I’m a sucker for a tasty bit of research, and I’ve recently learned that an orange a day may protect us from heart disease and stroke.Read

Bm@il: 'Hello spring' - from one darling bud of April

MAY I be the first to welcome you to the first day of spring, my favourite season.They say you feel closest to the time of year you were born, and as an April baby I definitely fit the bill.Read

Bm@il: No need for an icy suicide - just keep an eye on your neighbours

ON FRIDAY, it will be 100 years since the Antarctic explorer Captain Lawrence Oates deliberately walked from his tent into a howling blizzard to die.Read

Bm@il: Only an anorak would become a leezure wear spotter

I’LL tell you one thing my generation finds hard to get right. We fail miserably when it comes to that strange ‘animal’ leisure wear, or ‘leezure wear’ as Mr F calls it, with an exaggerated American accent.Read

Author Profile

Barbara is a highly experienced journalist known to many in Hillingdon borough. She writes with warmth and empathy, giving her views on current events, debates and issues affecting many people locally and nationally. Her Bm@il column is funny, honest and thought-provoking, as she chews over current news, reflects on past assignments or simply indulges in some lively chat.