Oliver Phillips blog from Watford Observer

Oliver Phillips moved to a small village in France in 2005 after he retired from the Watford Observer. “Oli” worked for the newspaper for nearly 40 years and, as assistant editor and formerly sports editor, became the oracle on the affairs of Watford FC, writing the definitive book on the club’s history. During later years with the newspaper he also specialised in the history of the area, writing a series of extremely popular supplements and editing the newspapers’ weekly Nostalgia pages.

New Orleans: one of my favourites in the US

I WOULD add New Orleans to the likes of San Francisco, Memphis and Charleston as US cities to which I would happily return, along with such as Plymouth (Ma) and Asheville (NC).

Bubba Gump is crossed off the wish-list

THE first complete day in New Orleans, I achieved a number of aims. I had a pot of gumbo (meat and sausage gumbo). I also had a mint julep and finished off in the evening with catfish and pecan – the nuts offsetting the distinct but slightly muddy but far from unpleasant taste of my first-ever Mississippi catfish.

Who needs Mardi Gras in Spring when a September night is madly busy?

WE had thought about going to New Orleans for Mardi Gras. Well, that was the original intent but after seeing the French quarter in New Orleans on an autumn Friday and Saturday, we realized that would have been madness.

Travelex. Let our card increase the strain of your holiday

RELAX and let Travelex take the strain while on holiday. That is what the blurb suggests but the Cash Passport provided by Travelex did not enable me to relax. Far from it: it caused considerable aggravation.

I pulled into Nazareth, I was feeling 'bout half-past dead

WHEN I read the news, my mind went back to the late 1960s, when so many rock groups seemed to have bizarre names as the psychedelic era held sway and, whether they called themselves Curved Air or Tangerine Dream or Plastic Tomcat, they wore clothes to evoke the Technicolor kaleidoscope of the those fused sounds.

Pigs in blankets - way to go

PETE looked at the waitress after we had all ordered and said: “I’ll have pigs in a blanket.”

Strike cost me a 36-hour round trip to Paris

OFTEN I am amazed at how travel arrangements seem to fall into place. We plan to travel to the UK, catch a ferry from Calais at 2.30pm French time and we are sitting in a pub near Banbury with a pint of Old Hookey in front of me by 6pm English time.

The Law of Sod is still haunting me at every turn

SOME years ago, with the help of a large mechanical digger and the passing of some 200 euros in notes, I obtained the outline of a pond, some 7m x 3m and over one meter deep. There was quite a lot of remedial work to be done as the digger arrived on a wet day and spent no more than an hour and half digging on the sloping Folly.

Our chances of a quick house sale are blighted by EDF

WE benefited from the depressed housing market when we bought the house in St Amans-Soult, near Mazamet in The Tarn. We know that our old house, which was worth six figures a couple of years back, is unlikely to fetch much more than half that amount.

Ex-pats embrace some of those Arab values

IT is not just the ex-pats Brits but Europeans and Americans who enjoy the culture of Dubai particularly in respect of bringing up children. It was interesting in conversations with daughter Abbie’s friends and neighbours, how much they value the stricter attitudes handed down by the rulers.