Sandra Harris Writes

  PHILLIP SCHOFIELD, THIS MORNING AND THAT WHOLE KETTLE OF FISH. BY SANDRA HARRIS. © Things are not exactly tickety-boo for former ITV presenter Phillip Schofield at the moment. In fact, May has really been the month from hell for the silver-haired sixty-one-year-old who has spent the last twenty years presenting ITV’s flagship television show, THIS MORNING. Firstly, his relationship with his THIS MORNING co-host Holly Willoughby was reported in the media as being ‘on the rocks,’ even though she’d supposedly been his Numero Uno support after he ‘came out’ as gay on the programme in 2020, after twenty-seven years of marriage.   Then, after weeks of intensifying rumours and speculation, Schofield steps down from his THIS MORNING presenting role, followed a few days later by his statement admitting to his affair with ‘a younger male colleague,’ as a result of which he’s stepping down from ITV permanently. He won’t present the upcoming British Soap Awards, and I presume th...

NOTES ON A EUROVISION. BY SANDRA HARRIS. © This year’s Eurovision, held in Liverpool, England, was the best craic ever. Hang on a minute. Why was it held in Liverpool? England didn’t win last year’s show, did they? Christ, no, they came second, with Sam Ryder’s song, SPACEMAN , an achievement which is amazing enough considering England haven’t won a sausage in this competition in donkeys’ years. Not since Brexit made them the most annoying country in the EU anyway. Yikes, I mean, not in the EU. No, see, what happened was, Ukraine actually won the entire shebang last year with the Kalush Orchestra and their mesmerising song Stefania, but Ukraine is heavily involved at the moment in a war with Russia (Russia started it!) and would have been unable to host the return show. Hence, England, as the runner-up, graciously stepped in. And if you think, by the way, that Ukraine only won last year’s shindig because they were being bullied big-time by Russia, well, you can think again. Nor...

CORONATION STREET . . . FINALLY! BY SANDRA HARRIS. © Oh wow. It’s done. The crown is on the head. Charles, formerly the Prince of Wales, has just been crowned the King of England. It’s a gig he’s waited for his whole life, but Mumsie, Queen Elizabeth the Second, was a bit of a throne hog and didn’t relinquish that coveted hot seat until she literally passed away in September 2022. I always thought she’d retire in good time, pass the crown onto her first-born and then keep a maternal eye on him for a year or two, see what kind of a fist he made of it, always ready with a golden nugget of maternal wisdom should his steps falter. But no, like I said, Mumsie hogged that throne with the grim determination of my kids elbowing their way into the best couch seats when the good telly starts of a Saturday night. I was watching one of those Sky News phone-in shows during the week, where common folks like you and me were invited on to air their views about Charles and the coronation in con...

  WHY I’M NOT CRAZY ABOUT THIS POST-PANDEMIC WORLD OF OURS. BY SANDRA HARRIS. © 1.       Firstly, we emerged out of the COVID-19 pandemic, in which a few million people, including many of our loved ones, died globally, into a world where Russia, led by Vladimir Putin, was allowed to attack Volodymyr Zelenskyy’s Ukraine, in a manner disturbingly similar to Hitler’s take-overs of various countries during World War Two. Didn’t we put measures in place at the end of that war to prevent this exact type of thing from ever happening again in mainland Europe? Someone somewhere must not have read the memo… 2.       Right. The shops are not as full of juicy goodness, useful gizmos and yummy treats as before. And, any time you ask the shop keeper or store manager what’s happened to your favourite chocolate bar with the picture of the lovely Alpine village on the wrapper or the blue kitchen roll that goes on forever, they just look apolog...

  WHEN PETS PASS AWAY… BY SANDRA HARRIS. © You’ll notice I didn’t title this piece COPING WITH THE PASSING OF A PET. I could no more tell you how to do that than I could advise you on stocks and shares. I can’t even bring myself to use the ‘D’ word in reference to the demise of a pet. It’s a topic I find very emotional, so I figured maybe it was time I wrote about it and tried to make sense of it. My kids and I kept hamsters from October 2017 to   October 2022. During this time, we constantly had hamsters living with us in the house. The Last Ham passed away in October 2022, leaving us pet-less for the first time in five years. This was a horrible shock to the system, I can tell you. My daughter told us- my son and I- that she didn’t feel able to care for any more pets for a while, certainly that side of Christmas. As she’s the one who typically does all the grunt work for the little critters, we had to respect this. We were all devastated, though. A Christmas withou...

  MISSING YOU ALREADY, WORLD CUP 2022…! BY SANDRA HARRIS. © Aw. I feel bereft today. The 2022 World Cup ended yesterday, the eighteenth of December, and now all I have to look forward to is Christmas with its tons of great presents, the FATHER TED Christmas special on telly and more delicious grub than you could shake a stick at. As I said, aw…! The four weeks of exciting football and football excitement really took my mind off the pelting rain, the freezing cold, all the talk of future gas shortages and the sight of people on the News stocking up on little primus/camping stoves from the ‘outdoors’ and camping shops, just in case we’re facing into a new, Putin-led Armageddon. 2022 hasn’t exactly been the greatest year ever for good news, has it? It was the year Russia declared war on Ukraine, and we here in Ireland should know this because we’ve taken in about 65,000 Ukrainian refugees to date. We still have killer virus COVID-19 with us; I presume Monkeypox hasn’t gone awa...

  OUT NOW … (THE) QUEEN’S GREATEST HITS! BY SANDRA HARRIS.  © Wow. I literally never thought I’d see the day, but it’s finally happened. After a whopping ninety-six years on earth (it makes me dizzy just thinking about it) , Queen Elizabeth the Second of England passed away yesterday at ‘one of her favourite houses,’ Balmoral Castle in Scotland. I just want to say that, if I owned a castle in Scotland myself, it would probably be one of my own personal favourite homes. Well, that and the chateau in France and the Alpine chalet, naturally. Oh, and, of course, the Spanish villa. But no matter, never mind my bitterness, that’s not what we’re here to discuss today. Today is the day after the day that the Queen slipped quietly away into the afterlife to be with her husband, of whom more later. For now, all we want to do is have a look at her greatest accomplishments, victories and triumphs. We’ll call them (The) QUEEN’S GREATEST HITS … 1.       In...