Columns
Food review: Jungs
Posted by Julie Voyce on October 23, 2007 9:41 AM
Jungs, 9 Packhorse Road, Gerrards Cross. 01753 893071.
Sean O'Hare
I remember it well. It was a warm, bright, summer's day and I was driving along the Packhorse Road listening to 'Running in the Night' by Lionel Ritchie on Magic FM.
Gerrards Cross was buzzing, as was I, thanks to the combination of sunshine, music and it being my Friday lunchbreak.
But where could I ride this lunchtime high, prolong the buzz? I had a corned beef, tomato and pepper sandwich back at the office but there was no way I was going to miss out on this rare 'European moment'.
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View From The House: Cheryl Gillan
Posted by Julie Voyce on October 13, 2007 10:32 AM
Much as I love the landscape of the Chilterns, it cannot be denied that we do not have a sea coast!
So for a few days at least it is good to be at the seaside for the party conference season.
Whether the sea breezes will disperse the heat of “election fever”, or intensify the symptoms, you should know by the time this column is printed.
That said, it was good to see old friends and fellow delegates away from our home ground and to hear their responses to what was being said by shadow ministers.
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All In His Head: Sean O'Hare
Posted by Julie Voyce on September 23, 2007 10:15 AM
Sean O'Hare
BIG weekend for me, the one just gone. A dear friend of mine, Sotirios, organised a dinner party on my behalf and invited a girl that I've had trouble dismissing from my thoughts for the last year or so. An immensely bright guy, Sotirios. He studied economics at St Andrews, Oxford and Cambridge and now wears square framed glasses and works for a private investment bank. He has a sharp, analytical mind and always thinks at least five steps ahead.
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Working Mum's Diary: Chene Koscielny
Posted by Julie Voyce on September 22, 2007 10:13 AM
Every birthday, Christmas and Mother's Day, my well-meaning husband presents me with a novel or book by a well-respected author about some thought- provoking subject.
And so, if you were invited to a dinner party at mine and you had a moment to study the contents of the bookshelf in the living room, you would suspect that I am a literary connoisseur - some-one who knows their Amis from their McEwan. You could expect me to wax lyrically about the meaning of life in a Proust-inspired way, analyse intelligently the historical origins of Islam or argue passionately about the merits of the Booker prize.
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All in his Head: Sean O'Hare
Posted by Julie Voyce on September 11, 2007 12:32 PM
Sean O'Hare
I'VE got a nickname, his name is Billy. He's the little prat I turn into when I've had upwards of five pints and my eyes glaze over. Some nights he overpowers me and charges out of his box like a tramp pestered by a wasp. Other nights I find myself coaxing him out. As a result, he doesn't know where he stands. The truth is, I can't make my mind up whether I like him or not.
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View from the House: Cheryl Gillan
Posted by Julie Voyce on September 8, 2007 2:52 PM
The end of summer is here and I had been planning a light-hearted article about the Parliamentary break. Then I heard of the murder of poor Rhys Jones, aged 11, in Liverpool.
Rhys’ parents described the brand new school uniform, which their son was to have worn at his new school, which he will now never wear. All that life and promise was extinguished in a cruel instant.
More parents will now wonder if they should let their children enjoy the freedom which they themselves took for granted at the same age.
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View from the House: Dominic Grieve
Posted by Julie Voyce on September 3, 2007 1:58 PM
Although most school pupils are enjoying a well-earned rest, the summer can be an anxious time for those waiting for exam results. I am not sure that I would have wanted to receive my results by text message, but some pupils in Scotland have chosen this method.
Let’s wish "Good luck" to all who are waiting for those results and let us recognise how hard most of them have worked towards their goals.
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Working Mum's Diary: Chene Koscielny
Posted by Julie Voyce on September 3, 2007 11:54 AM
WE are in the last gasp of a terminally-ill summer with the end of the school holidays mercifully in sight. What better way to while away a few hours with activity-starved children than to head down to the leisure centre pool? Or so you would think.
I phone a fellow mum whom I suspect would be keen to step out from behind her ironing board and escape the constant nagging for attention, snacks and Cbeebies.
Let’s face it, when you’re a non-celebrity mum racing towards your forties, you don’t readily volunteer to parade around in your bathing suit in full public view.
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All In HIs Head: Sean O'Hare
Posted by Julie Voyce on August 26, 2007 10:02 AM
TWO FACTS for you: 1) The house in which I have grown up in is to be bulldozed to make way for Heathrow Airport's expansion. 2) I missed out on Glastonbury this year.
For these two reasons I decided to head down to the Climate Camp, a temporary, sustainable settlement just north of Heathrow, made up of protesters, green peace activists, the odd mongrel dog, undercover police, and soon-to-be-homeless residents urgently familiarising themselves with the four walls of a canvas tent.
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All In His Head: Sean O'Hare
Posted by Julie Voyce on August 14, 2007 10:02 AM
Sean O'Hare
"I was sitting in the corner with my bag of marijuana, I wanted to get higher so I set myself on fire." These were the famous lyrics sung by the 'fast set' or rather the 'slow set' at my school who would repair to the ditch at break and return to class with smoke clinging to their blazers and silly grins on their faces. The 'silly grins' bit, I hasten to add, was nothing to do with what they were smoking - they always had silly grins on their faces. Considering the lyrics , in light of recent scientific evidence proving the drug's capacity to send smokers loco, they were ironically prophetic.
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All In His Head: Sean O'Hare
Posted by Julie Voyce on August 10, 2007 12:32 PM
It was 10.30am and my car had been parked illegally in a bay across town since 8.31am. At best there would be a clamp on the wheel and a yellow ticket on the window. At worst it would be sitting in a pound, guarded by a pit-bull in a bomber jacket smoking his way through a pack of Bensons.
I hailed a cab and poured my heart out to Driver. They love a bit of drama from the backseat, cabbies. They love picking up non-violent, hungover people with their shirts hanging out, ready to shoot the breeze. He put his foot down and he felt for me all the way.
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View From The House: Dominic Grieve
Posted by Julie Voyce on August 4, 2007 3:43 PM
Dominic Grieve, MP for Beaconsfield, writes:
THERE are some things which people seem either to love or to hate: reality TV shows, rice pudding, begonias, wheelie bins…
The collection of domestic, non-recyclable waste, once a fortnight, is something which has caused concern to individual constituents and which has been the subject of sustained media campaigns.
MPs on the Communities and Local Government Select Committee decided to scrutinise these concerns. After all, as they said in their final report, every household is entitled to a domestic waste collection and everyone has an opinion on how the collection should be carried out.
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All In His Head: Sean O'Hare
Posted by Julie Voyce on August 1, 2007 6:50 PM
IF I could have asked George Best one question and barred him from hitting me or giving the answer "more drink", it would have been: How do you deal with post-lash depression, George? For there is nothing truer than the saying: What goes up must come down. Like a cowboy builder with a spirit level, I spent Monday, Tuesday and Wednesday trying to find that internal equilibrium after a particularly ruinous weekend. Drink is a great servant but a poor master, and not for the first time, I allowed it to call the shots. Come Sunday evening I knew only too well where I was heading.
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Working Mum's Diary: Chene Koscielny
Posted by Julie Voyce on July 31, 2007 10:23 AM
EVERY now and then I suffer a parenting panic attack. It has nothing to do with guilt about how my working will scar my children psychologically, or whether they would have been geniuses if I hadn’t had the odd glass of wine during pregnancy.
I don’t wake up in a sweat imagining my five-year old daughter smashed off her face with the wrong crowd or picturing the three-year-old having an ASBO slapped on him for breaking into cars. (Although I probably should be worried in his case – he almost hotwired my car with the tennis club keys the other day.)
No, the fear that grips me with such force as to make me choke in my glass of Chardonnay, is the terrifying thought that I don’t have a life – beyond being a mum.
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All In His Head: Sean O'Hare
Posted by Julie Voyce on July 20, 2007 11:27 AM
THE lucky woman who gets to marry me will have to pass this test: I will take her to a smallholding in Spain that I will either own or rent depending on my fortunes as a journalist.
Anyway, I will tell her I own it. Scrub that, I mustn't lie to her in case she is the one. If she sleeps on the plane on the way over, she must not dribble, and if she stays awake, she must not catch me dribbling.
Engrossed in games of Paper, Scissor, Stone in the back of the taxi, we will arrive before we know it, in what will be a dusty, rural village with not an Englishman in sight. We shall unpack in my modest, clean villa before I take her to the garden where I will keep two rescue donkeys tied to a tree. One donkey will be considerably bigger than the other.
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All In His Head: Sean O'Hare
Posted by Julie Voyce on July 17, 2007 10:04 AM
IF YOU had a vast expanse of land right next to Heathrow airport what would you use it for? What business would you start?
I had this debate with my friend, Simon, in a beer garden in Longford after an evening spent go-karting at a new track in Colnbrook, near Heathrow.
Now, Simon, dear Simon, is a business and marketing graduate whose early forays into business involved carpeting lockers at his school for £5 a pop, using the offcuts from his living room carpet which his mum later needed. He was the toast of his grammar school.
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View from the House: Cheryl Gillan
Posted by Julie Voyce on July 10, 2007 9:50 AM
IT HAS been a matter of concern to me and my constituents who use Chesham Underground Station that the controlling power over the underground system lies in the hands of the London Mayor.
Chesham’s residents cannot vote for the Mayor, yet he has direct responsibility for our station.
That was why I was so disturbed to read a newspaper report which included Chesham in a list of 40 Underground stations whose ticket offices may be closed.
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All in His Head: Sean O'Hare
Posted by Julie Voyce on July 6, 2007 2:23 PM
WHAT do you call a Frenchman in sandals? Felipe Feloppe.
Unable to say no to a free holiday for the 25th year running, I spent the last two weeks with my parents, sister and gospel-singing aunt in a caravan in the Vendee region of France. It rained everyday and I smoked 10 finger-length Vasco de Gama cigars and one Cuban. But didn't inhale.
Arriving at our campsite in St-Hilaire-de-Riez, a small village 250 miles south-west of Calais on the Atlantic coast, we were greeted, as is the custom, by our campsite courier. This particular courier was called Sophie, or Front-of-house Sophie, as I preferred.
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Working Mum's Diary
Posted by Julie Voyce on June 30, 2007 12:03 PM
MY HUSBAND was away (as usual) on a 10-day business trip to somewhere exotic, the baby (six months old at the time) and I were burning up with fever from some nasty virus he caught at the nursery, and my daughter (then two) had a tummy bug.
For what felt like 40 days and 40 nights I stumbled around the house in a feverish, tearful state, manically washing sheets, sterilising bottles, dishing out Calpol, overdosing on Paracetamol and Chardonnay, while trying to meet a deadline for a freelance story about some topic I had no clue about.
The only thing that kept me going through these agonising days and never-ending nights was the thought of my parents arriving shortly for a three-day visit from South Africa.
(They were not actually going to be staying with us, but in a B&B nearby, our house is too cramped for them).
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Stub it Out with Sean O'Hare
Posted by Julie Voyce on June 17, 2007 4:00 PM
Now that I have been off the smokes for nearly three months and not at all tempted to restart, there is a high risk that writing about a subject that no longer concerns me will appear contrived. It is for this reason that I have changed course and will now write about whatever pops into my smoke-free head.
I HAVE always refused to accept the idea that girls like it when a man makes an effort.
I see a guy on a date wearing his new shirt and smelling of Lynx and I feel like saying to him, "It's only the tuneless birds that need bright plumage, sonny". In my experience, as soon as a girl realises that you have made an effort she pulls the anchor up, retrieves her net and calls it a day.
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Stub it Out with Sean O'Hare
Posted by Julie Voyce on June 10, 2007 9:55 AM
WHAT brand of cigarettes do you think Keith Chegwin smokes?
Yes, he does smoke because I caught him red handed. I had him down as a Silk Cut man. I don't know why, but I suppose I wanted to put some distance between him and me, a former Marlboro Red man and a member of Mick Jagger's school of rock that sings: "He can't be a man because he does not smoke the same cigarettes as me."
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View from the House: Cheryl Gillan
Posted by Julie Voyce on June 8, 2007 9:00 AM
IT IS extremely important for me, as a Member of Parliament, that constituents should be able to come and talk to me in absolute confidence.
That is why the recent debates over whether Freedom of Information legislation should cover Parliamentary cases have caused me some concerns.
I do not want people living in Chesham and Amersham to think that they cannot come to me, as they always have, in the knowledge that what they say will, if they wish it, remain totally confidential.
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Stub it Out with Sean O'Hare
Posted by Julie Voyce on June 2, 2007 1:23 PM
THERE are a lot of tough men out there. The type that are forever seen in different 4x4s and drink their beer standing with their legs shoulder-width apart.
These types don't miss a trick. You could be spying on one from behind a drawn curtain as he slaps his friend's back in a beer garden some 50 yards away and more often than not he will catch your eye.
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View from the House: Dominic Grieve
Posted by Julie Voyce on May 31, 2007 2:21 PM
SOME venerable institutions appeared to be under attack recently – the grammar schools.
The debate about the value of grammar schools will no doubt continue, even though David Cameron has made it clear that there is no threat to existing schools.
Buckinghamshire is an example nationally because so many parents care passionately about the standard of education available to pupils.
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Stub it Out with Sean O'Hare: week eight
Posted by Julie Voyce on May 27, 2007 9:42 AM
THE ex-Mr Universe who runs Panther's Gym in Cowley with his partner, Panther, the former Gladiator, is slowly warming to me.
My gym buddy and sometime friend Colin reckons if we keep our training up he might start speaking to us.
You see, he doesn't like quitters and I don't blame him. No one likes a quitter. I quit the cigarettes and I don't like myself.
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View from the House: Dominic Grieve MP
Posted by Julie Voyce on May 26, 2007 11:48 AM
A DECADE on from the headlines "Education, education, education", figures released by the Department for Education and Skills at the end of April may form the legacy of the outoing Prime Minister.
There are 1,000 fewer head teachers since 1997. The number of teachers actually fell last year.
Yet the number of people working on school administration rose by 27,000 since 1997, an increase of nearly 70 per cent.
The amount of regulation and red tape has caused this growth in clerical work. There are just more than 19,000 extra posts to deal with the torrent of paperwork.
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Working Mum's Diary: Chene Koscielny
Posted by Julie Voyce on May 25, 2007 3:59 PM
FOR three weeks now I have walked around weighed down by a feeling I can not shake off. I do not sleep well, wake up several times a night, tormented by feelings of anxiety and utter despair.
The haunting images of Madeleine McCann, pictured, affect me like a blow to the stomach, leaving me weak, until I manage to chase her from my mind.
Every day, I am drawn to my computer or television screen in the macabre way of passers-by at an accident scene.
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View from the House: Cheryl Gillan MP
Posted by Julie Voyce on May 21, 2007 10:52 AM
FOR A time it seemed that Tony Blair, despite his declaration, would never depart as Prime Minister, but now we know he is leaving and the speculation has turned to what kind of Prime Minister Gordon Brown will be.
Political predictions are not difficult in these circumstances because Gordon Brown will start to publish 'great ideas'.
However, as my constituents will remember, Mr Brown has been around for 13 years and making policies all the while.
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Stub it Out with Sean O'Hare: week seven
Posted by Julie Voyce on May 20, 2007 4:55 PM
ONE of my nemeses at university happened to be a towering Italian New Yorker, a self-appointed hellraiser with a black haired barrel-chest and beer can-crushing paws.
He liked nothing more than throwing house parties, throwing on his sandals, throwing his father's money around and throwing me out of the front door whenever he spotted me trying to get in on the fun.
He didn't like my face and I didn't like his, it was as simple as that.
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Stub It Out with Sean O'Hare: week six
Posted by Julie Voyce on May 15, 2007 11:27 AM
An experiment conducted in 32 cities has revealed that average walking speeds have increased by about 10 per cent since 1994.
Apparently, as people get more hurried and move faster they spend less time with their friends, don't have time to exercise, eat poorly and drink and smoke more.
Absolute pants is what I say to that.
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Working mum's diary: Chene Koscielny
Posted by Julie Voyce on May 11, 2007 1:50 PM
By Chene Koscielny
Why do smart women chatter about nappies and nurseries in the online version of the ladies', rather than taking part in debates about serious issues such as the war on Iraq on the internet (and other media)?
This was the rather patronising question posed – not by a bloke as you might expect – but by another woman – probably childless or in the empty nest phases of parenting - in a daily newspaper.
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Stub It Out with Sean O'Hare: week six
Posted by Julie Voyce on May 5, 2007 12:18 PM
SITTING next to Sue Johnston, the long-suffering wife of Jim Royle in The Royle Family sitcom at last week's Champions League semi-final between Chelsea and Liverpool, I asked her what she was doing when she was my age, 25.
She said: "I was working as a rep in Farnham, Surrey, and going through a divorce."
We continued talking and almost as if she was talking in character, she turned to me with that familiar worn out, frazzled look of despair and said: "Life can change on a sixpence, just enjoy being young. You must enjoy being young."
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Blissett: Saturdays will be very different from now on
Posted by Julie Voyce on May 5, 2007 10:04 AM
Saturday, April 28 marked my last game as the manager of Chesham United. A 1-1 draw away at Hillingdon Borough meant we finished the season with five points from a possible nine from the last three games.
For most of the season, we have either won games or lost them. Draws have been a rare commodity until our last two away games.
A mid-table finish was very disappointing after our very promising start.
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View from the House: Cheryl Gillan MP
Posted by Julie Voyce on April 29, 2007 10:33 AM
Cheryl Gillan writes:
WHEN an organisation like the Royal College of Nursing (RCN) draws attention to the state of the NHS, people listen carefully, because nurses are at the front line of the health service.
The RCN has reported that more than 22,300 posts have been lost in the health service in the past 18 months.
I have received letters from doctors and nurses who have completed their training and cannot find posts to practise their skills; and from their families, who know how committed these newly-qualified practitioners are to working in the NHS and caring for patients.
We do desperately need those skills within the health service.
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Stub it out with Sean O'Hare - week five
Posted by Julie Voyce on April 28, 2007 10:00 AM
by Sean O'Hare
AS A non-smoking, packed lunch-making, gym-going bore I decided as of last week to cut out the Friday fish and chip tradition that has been in the family about as long as the faulty gene.
Instead I finished work and met my pal at Panthers Gym in Cowley, owned and managed by the ex-Gladiator, Panther.
Even with her glasses on she looks like a handful, while her husband, an ex-Mr Universe, gives the impression he doesn't suffer fools, so we didn't stay too long.
We decided to refuel on chicken and headed for Nandos.
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Working Mum's Diary: Don't mention the weather
Posted by Julie Voyce on April 27, 2007 12:27 PM
By Chene Koscielny
FINALLY, it is the night before our well-deserved, much-anticipated Easter break to the south of France.
Excitement has reached fever pitch in the Koscielny household. It’s 9pm and the children, high on chocolate eggs, scramble around the house like Easter bunnies on speed, climbing in and out of half-packed suitcases and generally causing chaos.
This leads to the kind of parenting moment I am not proud of, including wild threats and loud screaming, but has the desired effect and they settle down, albeit a bit tearful. Never mind, I will make it up to them with loads of quality time over leisurely picnics and family walks.
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Working mum's Diary: The Mummy Mafia
Posted by Ben Steele on April 18, 2007 10:38 AM
By Chene Koscielny
YOU wouldn’t think there would be much to say about the simple act of dropping off or fetching children from school. But you would be wrong.
The school run can be a political minefield, a theatre of life, a microcosm of society and can be a cruel and lonely place for the inexperienced or uninitiated mum, or, heaven help him, dad.
It’s the adult playground, complete with teacher’s pets, prefects, show-offs, cry-babies, tittle tales and bullies, where only the fittest survive.
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View From the House: MP Cheryl Gillan
Posted by Ben Steele on April 13, 2007 4:35 PM
Cheryl Gillan, MP for Chesham and Amersham, writes:-
A QUESTION OF AGEISM?
MOIRA Stuart, the newsreader, made the news herself recently when it was reported that she has lost her job because of her age.
This made me think hard because I will soon be the same age as Miss Stuart and I should hate to think I would be judged purely on age rather than experience and ability.
Any woman in public life knows that, when speaking in public, one’s words may be forgotten, but what one is wearing will always be remembered.
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Stub It Out with Sean O'Hare - Week 3
Posted by Julie Voyce on April 13, 2007 1:42 PM
IT ALL started with a cigarette. My whole weekend was ruined by the lighting of one cigarette and it wasn't even I that smoked it.
Up until that point on Saturday at 3pm I had behaved impeccably. I had drunk tea with mother before washing my car and treating it to some oil.
Instead of hoovering the inside, I decided to pick up a friend and whale at the gym. Unfortunately, as we arrived, it closed, so while I suggested press ups outside or perhaps a run, he lit a cigarette and suggested the pub.
You're a prat, boy, I thought.
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