Arts

My art week

There is always one in every class and we have our resident know-all in our British modernist course. He identified Hitler, Churchill and Daladier in Mark Gertler’s anti-war carousel picture. The only problem it was painted in 1916. Yesterday we studied Paul Nash. Nash was a considerable [...]

October 17, 2018 // 0 Comments

La Traviata/Glyndebourne

Glyndebourne on tour is a less expensive version of the summer festival where the opera is put on the conveyor belt for the eventual production in the festival. There is quite a bit of fine tuning to be done to this La Traviata. The story based on Alexandre Dumas’ Lady of the Camelias is powerful [...]

October 16, 2018 // 0 Comments

The history and joys of Irish rugby in a broader context

Last night I watched my recording of recent BT Sport-transmitted Shoulder To Shoulder, a excellent and thought-provoking documentary made/presented by Irish rugby legend Brian O’Driscoll on the strange not to say unique place that the sport of rugby union occupies in the relationship between Eire [...]

October 16, 2018 // 0 Comments

The price of something – and then its value

Less than a month ago, at private lunch also attended by both the publisher and the editor of The Rust, I was pleased to learn from them that a recently-conducted survey had revealed our arts coverage had registered the highest ‘quality appreciation’ score of all amongst our readership. Here I [...]

October 15, 2018 // 0 Comments

The Housemaid

The cover of the DVD of this 2010 South Korean film advertises it as “a sexy thriller” with star Jeon Do-youn showing her thigh no doubt to entice the punter but in fact it’s a beautifully-observed film which reminded me of Rebecca. The story is of of a young nanny called Eun- yi (Jeon [...]

October 14, 2018 // 0 Comments

Now you see them – now you don’t …

Okay, I am coming out of the woods with my hands up – I deliberately tuned in yesterday to ITV’s live coverage of the Royal Wedding of Princess Eugenie to Jack Brooksbank in Windsor, more of curiosity than anything else but half-hoping that the crowds would be sparse and that opportunities for [...]

October 13, 2018 // 0 Comments

Bateman House, Burwash

On what may well be the last hot day of this glorious summer extending into autumn, I was delighted to be visiting yesterday Bateman’s, the home of Rudyard Kipling, just east of Lewes which he bought in 1902 for £9,300 which came with 33 acres. At the height of his popularity and fame Kipling [...]

October 11, 2018 // 0 Comments

My art week

Dear old John Pargiter often gives us the lowdown on his sporting week and as there have been three developments in mine I thought I might share them with you. On Monday the ex-cricketer and now artist Jack Russell popped round. I now have three of his works and admire his sense of composition and [...]

October 10, 2018 // 0 Comments

An early ending

At what stage does a disgruntled reader give up on his/her book? It’s an issue that troubles many a book club. Some have rules that provided the member gives a cogent reason he/she can give up. I was guest at one where Saul Bellow novel The Adventures of Argie March was “set”. At least half [...]

October 9, 2018 // 0 Comments

A Good Year/Ridley Scott

Alone for the day as Gail had taken the kids to a distant relative, I wanted to enjoy my freedom with a DVD. A friend had lent me a Pedro Almodovar movie which had rested in my to-be-watched section rather too long. Slightly resentful that I could not watch a semi-erotic French film, I inserted the [...]

October 7, 2018 // 0 Comments

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A new number one and an old one refinds form

October 22, 2018 // 0 Comments

I doubt if many outside golf and a few inside it would recognise Brooks Koepka if he passed them in the street but they should do as the thrice Major champion is now golf [...]
Quelle horreur! I’ve just realised I’d like to be young again …

October 22, 2018 // 0 Comments

It’s very important for Rusters that – with our famous mission statement being to observe and comment upon the modern world from our viewpoint as ‘people beyond a [...]
Reflections of a couch potato

October 21, 2018 // 0 Comments

Yesterday I spent most of the day watching golf and soccer on the tv. I started in the early hours with the CT Cup in Nine Bridges, Jeju Island, South Korea – a USPGA [...]
A Saturday march – and a few thoughts

October 21, 2018 // 0 Comments

As an avowed cynic on the subject of the Western World’s hypocritical political and Establishment elites [query – are they not the same thing?] steeped in their [...]
An Aggers /Johnston moment

October 20, 2018 // 0 Comments

For many the funniest-ever broadcast was when Jonathan Agnew and Brian Johnston lost it in a fit of giggles after Aggers said Ian Botham could not quite his leg over. I later [...]