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Everyone Brave is Forgiven/Chris Cleave

This book came recommended on A Good Read. Presenter Harriet Gilbert opined that it’s essentially two novels – one a plotted novel – and the other a World War Two account of the Blitz in London and the travails of Malta. Of the two elements “the plot” is, in my own view, [...]

April 21, 2025 // 0 Comments

The White Lotus & other TV dramas

The White Lotus reached its final episode last Monday and there were two fatalities. I shall not give any spoilers –  matters were resolved, but not so finally as to make another series impossible. One does wonder how actors written out of the series by their premature deaths feel. I think [...]

April 9, 2025 // 0 Comments

Personal attendance versus watching on TV: the debate continues …

Having spent my normal weekend sports-watching on TV I am going to add two critical logs to this fiery debate, namely adverts and pundits. Like many, I suspect the ad break in sports coverage is an opportunity to visit the loo, fetch a beer or a cuppa and do chores. Yet if you stay by the TV you [...]

April 1, 2025 // 0 Comments

Inventing Post Impressionism/Charleston

Yesterday I went to Charleston near Lewes for the exhibition Inventing Post Impressionism. The connection between Charleston and Post Impressionism is the art critic Roger Fry who invented the term. Charleston was the home of Vanessa and Clive Bell and the Sussex outpost of the Bloomsbury Group. [...]

March 27, 2025 // 0 Comments

Recent TV dramas

I was delighted that Ten Pound Poms – about the British emigration to Australia in the 1950s – is now in its second series. I can claim a connection as my parents knew an eccentric travel agent (S.G.) whose main business was the repatriation of such emigrants. Well do I remember visits [...]

March 26, 2025 // 0 Comments

Weekend TV sport

With no Premiership or Championship soccer taking place you might have thought some of the internationals between European titans (e.g. Netherlands v Spain or Italy v Germany) might be broadcast, but the powers that be apparently imagine that we prefer women’s football or Scotland or Wales [...]

March 24, 2025 // 0 Comments

Judgment at Tokyo/Gary Bass

Gary Bass, a Princeton historian, has written a magisterial and definitive work on the tribunal constituted by Supreme Commander Douglas MacArthur to try the main forces behind Japan’s war crimes during World War Two. The tribunal problems – one might even say flaws – were threefold: [...]

March 21, 2025 // 0 Comments

Greta Scacchi

One of the reasons why I enjoy the repeats of Bergerac is the casting of the young actors and actresses who appear on it. In the first series – made in 1981 – appeared a young actress aged 21. I thought at first she was Liz Hurley because of  her fine facial features. In fact it was [...]

March 20, 2025 // 0 Comments

Towards Zero and White Lotus

These TV dramatisations on BBC and Sky Atlantic reflect the great divide between the two broadcasters. Time was when the BBC drama department produced such cutting edge plays as Cathy Come Home and TV playwrights like Dennis Potter, but Towards Zero was sterile. Having read every Agatha Christie [...]

March 12, 2025 // 0 Comments

Endgame/BBC 2

After a few years it was good to see chess back on our screens. The format of Endgame was a series of lightning chess matches (known as blitzes) between contestants. One of them – known as the Swashbuckler – had discovered chess in prison and was a better talker than player. David [...]

March 11, 2025 // 0 Comments

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