Here Comes the Fun: A Year of Making Merry

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Ah, the durian. Spiky shell, contentious interior, a unique blend of tones and tastes, and utterly impossible to forget. Come to think of it, I couldn’t suggest a better national fruit. I liked the idea behind this book - looking at different ideas of fun over the course of a way. Except I think the author lost his way halfway through and it meandered a bit too much and turned into a bit of 'I need to try to be funny but instead, I'm a bit of a git' I fell for the places first. Over the next year, whenever I wasn’t required to peel spuds or bone cod, I skipped town and hit the road. I went north to Gdańsk and the Polish Riviera, east to Warsaw and the lakes of Masuria, and south to Wrocław, the mountains and Łódź, the Polish Hollywood.

He knew it and so did everyone else. He was grumpy, increasingly boring, mostly joyless. So, he joined a lawn bowls club. A week later, he doubled down on the doldrums by learning to dance like they do in Bollywood. Sixty-four years since breaking away from the British Empire, the tiny island city-state of Singapore can claim to be the world’s most expensive place to live, after a comprehensive survey carried out by the Economist Intelligence Unit, the newspaper group’s forecasting service. Ben Aitken’s guides to Istanbul, Haktan, far left, and his young cousin Yigit, far right. Photograph: Ben Aitken Although the results were mixed, the author's year of making merry left him feeling undoubtedly ... better. Which invites the question: if fun is such a reliable mood-swinger, shouldn't we be having more of it? There was Jerzy, the wizened custodian of a hut high in the southern Beskid mountains, where stray hikers with more ambition than sense are liable to be greeted first with frosty suspicion then with impeccable kindness, the latter in the form of stew and tea and a hand starting the fire.There are some good ideas here and perhaps the issue I have is with the format - it's presented in a linear way which means that we spend 2 weeks on a cruise with the author and that drags the whole thing down. Perhaps he felt it too? I wonder if it had been divided into bigger chunks rather than specific days and months, there would be have been the opportunity to drop some things that didn't work. I’ve not played football for 23 years, in which time my muscles and physique and general sporting ability have grown accustomed to televised drama and burritos. I enter the changing room and am hit by the smell of Deep Heat, which prompts a wave of bad nostalgia. Next, I head west to the Botanic Gardens (free; nparks.gov.sg), which are 164 years old this year. While the orchid garden is certainly diverting, it’s the rainforest trail that most floats my boat. The 30-minute route loops through a precious remnant of lowland tropical forest, and is a genuinely transportive experience.

Food fights, fishing and French cooking—bestselling author Ben Aitken's year of actively pursuing fun We might not have found a psychic from Poynton or a dominatrix from Davenport just yet, but we’ve pretty much got you covered for all other products and services you might need across Cheshire and Greater Manchester. Just take a look at this little lot…THE NEW AUDIOBOOK FROM THE MUCH-LOVED AUTHOR OF THE GRAN TOUR, A CHIP SHOP IN POZNAN AND THE MARMALADE DIARIES THE NEW BOOK FROM THE MUCH-LOVED AUTHOR OF THE GRAN TOUR, A CHIP SHOP IN POZNAN AND THE MARMALADE DIARIESFood fights, fishing and French cooking - bestselling author Ben Aitken's year of actively pursuing funBen Aitken wasn't getting enough. I hadn't read anything by Ben Aitken before and perhaps I'm not the audience but I really felt he was trying too hard to be funny and by the end of the book, I really disliked him. Dear County fans, Stopfordians, and anyone else joining us today, a very warm welcome to your Monday edition of The Scarf My Father Wore.

Although the results were mixed, the author’s year of making merry left him feeling undoubtedly … better. Which invites the question: if fun is such a reliable mood-swinger, shouldn’t we be having more of it? I don’t fit in the shirt, which is surely a portent. Problem is there’s only a small one spare, and I’ve got too much spare to be small, if you know what I mean. My warmup is off-the-scale self-conscious. I do some things I remember seeing others do years ago: high knees, star jumps, that sort of thing. The gaffer comes over and says that some of my teammates are genuine veterans. “One of these blokes fought in Vietnam. Another in the Falklands. If you don’t put your head in the way of things they’ll be on to you.”I’ve joined a veterans’ football team. My partner Megan isn’t supportive at all. She doesn’t, for a start, like the idea of me being eligible. (You’ve got to be 35+.) She asked me not to go. Looked on in despair when I bought the boots and shin pads. “My grandad plays walking football,” she said. “Shall I see if they need anyone?” We hope you will join us, and Ben, for lots of erm fun really on Thur sday 28th September here at FORUM Books, The Chapel, Corbridge. On top of its people and places, a country is a constellation of tiny quirks; a galaxy of shifting bits and pieces that, while neither constant nor objective, nonetheless make a solid contribution to a nation’s impression, its aura, its romance. After a year in the country, I was smitten with the place, and I didn’t want that to change