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Arts

Singer Sargent Course

Yesterday I attended the first edition of a course on the painter John Singer Sargent. It soon became clear that I had not read the course materials carefully enough – it was actually a drawing course based on the technique and style of Singer Sargent. It’s been many years since I picked up [...]

April 24, 2024 // 0 Comments

Sussex win & top League Two

After two draws and yesterday’s win by four wickets against Gloucestershire, Sussex now top the second division. After coach Paul Farbrace went on record saying that we will never witness again the golden period of the noughties when Sussex won 3 Championship titles and the Cheltenham & [...]

April 23, 2024 // 0 Comments

Sir Neville Marriner (1924-2017)

This April 15th would have been the centenary of the birth of conductor Sir Neville Marriner, the founder of the Academy of St Martin-in-the Fields, an eminent conductor. The BBC celebrated this centenary with a series of his recordings and I watched and listened to Marriner conduct his Academy [...]

April 17, 2024 // 0 Comments

Titanic

Having listened to all of the episodes on ‘The Rest is History’ podcast on the Titanic, which took the listener through its building for White Star lines in the Harland and Wolff shipbuilding yards in Belfast to its sinking when it hit a iceberg in April 1912, I then decided to watch [...]

April 9, 2024 // 0 Comments

Brighton 0 Arsenal 3

Arsenal swept aide Brighton 3-0 with no difficulty. The tone was set in the opening minute when Gabriel’s free header from a well-flighted free kick went just past the post. Bukayo Saka and Kai Haivetz scorned more chances but Saka converted a penalty to give the Gunners the lead. Two more goals [...]

April 7, 2024 // 0 Comments

St. Paul’s Old Boys and Oskar Schindler

In the week I watched on PBS Oskar Schindler/The Real Story and noticed that its writer, director and producer was Jon Blair. The self same Blair was at my school, St. Paul’s, and fled his native South Africa to avoid conscription. Like another South African of that era – Peter Hain – [...]

April 6, 2024 // 0 Comments

The Savage Storm: The battle for Italy 1943/James Holland

Pursuing my interest in the less well known theatres of World War Two warfare I read James Holland’s account of the Allies’ Italy campaign with great interest and enjoyment. The Allies had booted Rommel and his Afrika Korps out of North Africa, taken over Sicily and in late 1943 planned the [...]

April 3, 2024 // 0 Comments

The Rumor Game/Thomas Mullen

The Rumor Game is set in Boston in 1943 and features as central characters a Jewish activist journalist (Anne) and an Irishman (Devon Mulroy) who works for the FBI. Both are conflicted. Anne wants to be more involved in exposing rising anti-semitism, chiefly inflicted by the Irish community, and [...]

March 27, 2024 // 0 Comments

Dead In the Long Room/Andrew Green

Dead In The Long Room is a novel which works on several levels: as a murder mystery, as a depiction of Edwardian literary life and as a description of the pavilion at Lords. The story is of a murder of an actor Harold Wilde during the Authors v Actors match at Lords. This fixture still takes place [...]

March 19, 2024 // 0 Comments

A superb day of TV sport

I can scarcely remember a more exciting day of TV sport. It started with a lunchtime thriller of a quarter-final FA Cup tie contested between Wolves and Coventry which the latter won with 2 goals in extra time. Next up was Italy’s 24-21 victory over Wales in Cardiff. Italy are my team of the Six [...]

March 17, 2024 // 0 Comments

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