March 14-20, 2026
SATURDAY 14 Rich Britons living in the United Arab Emirates to avoid paying UK tax are squatting in tax-friendly countries like Ireland until the end of the tax year.
📌 The word DROP is now used to describe the release of something – a record, a TV show, a film. But some writers use it so badly you get the impression it means the opposite. A case in point is the recent headline, “ITVX drops new six-part thriller”. This does not mean ITVX has cancelled or scrapped the TV thriller, it means it has released all six episodes at once so viewers can binge watch it.
📌 I’ve underglazed the ceramic pendants in sweetshop colours. Next comes the top glaze, the vitreous sheen. It’s all been an experiment so I’ll be happy if any of them survive.
SUNDAY 15 America’s newest war in the Gulf has an impact way beyond the price of oil. According to a New Statesman article, Iran’s control of the Strait of Hormuz gives it the power to screw up your life. If Trump’s war continues indefinitely, products you treasure (eg, shampoo, shower gel, chewing gum and even salt & vinegar crisps) will soon either disappear from the market or become so expensive you won’t be able to afford them. I always preferred cheese & onion anyway.
📌 I can feel a Land & Sea phase coming into my stitchwork. Yesterday I saw a fantastically artistic satellite photo of the Strait of Hormuz that made me want to pick up my needle threader, and the latest flatfish is tempting me with some intriguing colours in the brown/pink/purple/red spectrum.
MONDAY 16 Sometimes only a few words will be able to tell a complete story.
📌 I’ve just remembered why I don’t use YouTube very much. It’s because it doesn’t let you do more than one thing at a time. You can’t read your book on Kindle and listen to music on YouTube at the same time. As soon as you open a second app, YouTube stops working.
📌 Jo emailed to say that the Royal London Hospital project will feature at this year’s European Healthcare Design Conference. The theme is Agile not Fragile: Designing for Resilience, Renewal and Regeneration.
TUESDAY 17 At a meeting with the Senior Management Team at Headway, the logo design was awarded an all-round thumbs up. All that remains is to tweak the typography and slim down the colour palette.
📌 I’m nearly at the end of the 84-episode drama Cold Tapes, a crime podcast series currently available on BBC Sounds. The premise is a murder at an Antarctic scientific research base that gets investigated by police on the phone at a distance of 9,000 miles. Brilliantly acted and so gripping it’s guaranteed to cost you precious sleep.
📌 The last word I get in Squardle is often one I’ve never even heard of.
WEDNESDAY 18 The preliminary hearing test with Kate revealed that I am hearing impaired and first need to visit the doctor because it could simply be I need my ears cleaned. After that it is a proper audiology test to determine the real extent of the impairment. And then maybe a hearing aid.
📌 At the St Luke’s User Group meeting one of our neighbours pledged to start a choir. When I told my wife who it was she said she’d not be signing up. There’s also trouble in the Men’s Shed centring on a conflict between two Shedders who hate each other’s guts. Peaceful members are starting to drift away as the war intensifies over the snooker table.
📌 At tonight’s wardmote the Beadle, sensing that he and his tricorn hat were among the irreverent, laughed after his “God Save The King” proclamation was met by silence.
THURSDAY 19 When I bought myself The George Orwell Complete Collection audiobook for Christmas I imagined it as part of a reference library I would dip into whenever the need arose. Something subliminal must have happened last night when we returned from the wardmote because I started listening to 1984 and by the time I got to Winston secretly reading The Theory and Practice of Oligarchical Collectivism during Hate Week, the identity of Big Brother and our local council, The City of London Corporation, had completely merged.
📌 It looks like Donald Trump has been properly kippered by Iran, but there is no face-saving exit for him to take. His power is starting to fade and I don’t know why but I have a feeling we might be in for a Maxwell Moment. Fingers crossed.
FRIDAY 20 Simon Jenkins has a stark warning for Keir Starmer. Stay out of Trump’s war and don’t be fooled, as was Tony Blair, by the “strategic seduction” of the US.
Starmer must not stumble down the same path as led more than 400 British soldiers to their deaths in Helmand.
📌 In the studio yesterday I noticed that Ken has finished his monoprint of me and the stitched brain I did for the Royal London Hospital.
📌 Writing is a bit like exercise. It’s a nice idea, but if the motivation/inspiration isn’t there, it’s easy to put off. But once you get going, it is enjoyable and I love playing with adjectives, cheekily verbifying nouns and wallowing in poetic devices such as simile, alliteration, bounce and metaphor. Yesterday Michelle asked me to write an introduction for the upcoming Peaks of Imperfection exhibition at The Art House. I planned to spend all today working on it, but once I’d nailed the first sentence, the rest flew and I’d finished it before I got out of bed.
Read all of my scrapbook diaries…
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Billy's Scrapbook 