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Music

On musical tastes and one’s place in time

Over the past week or so – nothing to do with my editorial duties I hasten to add – I have chosen to watch specific items featuring popular (rock) music on the television for my own enlightenment and/or pleasure. I have blogged previously upon my view that, in many respects – whether we like [...]

July 4, 2022 // 0 Comments

Fighting nature is sometimes futile

Given its general mission of providing observations upon modern life from the viewpoint of those of us who happen to be beyond the first flush of youth, it would be strange indeed if – amongst all the inevitable and wondrous advances that science, technology and cultural developments bring [...]

June 12, 2022 // 0 Comments

Orchestra of the Age of Enlightenment.

Last night at the Queen Elizabeth Hall I attended a concert given by the Orchestra of the Age of enlightenment (OAE) conducted by Sir Andras Schiff, who also played the piano. The OAE play historic instruments and the piano was a Graf pianoforte. I spent Wednesday evening in the company of a [...]

June 10, 2022 // 0 Comments

Platinum Jubilee Celebrations – a National Rust view

We asked our correspondents in various fields for their views on last weekend’s Celebrations. SPORT I thought sport was underrepresented. We have had three World Cup wins by men during Her Majesty’s reign – in Football, Cricket and Rugby Union. Women have won four in Cricket and 2 in [...]

June 7, 2022 // 0 Comments

The Lady Boys of Bangkok

The Lady Boys of Bangkok are a touring troupe of Thai transvestites who dance, sing and do burlesque and bawdy acts. They normally play in Brighton in a pavilion during the Brighton Festival for a month commencing May 6th.  I went to see them yesterday inviting a young companion. Their’s is [...]

June 2, 2022 // 0 Comments

One good turn deserves another

A good friend of mine who, even in his eighties, has never stopped working is now presenting his own show on the radio network Boom which concentrates on Sixties music and the disc jockeys are from that era. My friend “ Diddy” David Hamilton worked on Radio 1 and Radio 2. Others, like Graham [...]

May 27, 2022 // 0 Comments

Elmer Bernstein

Donald Macleod’s Composer of the Week on Radio 3 this week is the film composer Elmer Bernstein. His most famous score is The Magnificent Seven but he also  composed the scores for The Ten Commandments, The Great Escape, To Kill a Mockingbird, The Man with the Golden Arm, The Sweet Smell of [...]

April 6, 2022 // 0 Comments

Ruler of the Queen’s Navy/HMS Pinafore

The other day I was sitting next to a fellow over dinner who turned out to be a professional tribunal chairperson adjudicating on military cases. He spent a good deal of time in Plymouth on naval cases. For this he had earned the honorary title of Rear Admiral. This made me think of the humorous [...]

February 12, 2022 // 0 Comments

Sir Edward Elgar

I would lay a penny to the Pargiter tenner that if anyone had to cite the quintessential English composer it would be Edward Elgar. He composed five versions of Pomp and Circumstance and Land of Hope and Glory – written at a low point in the Boer War – is the most stirring of anthems. [...]

February 5, 2022 // 0 Comments

Casting to type – an interesting aspect of modern sensitivities

In these modern times of saturation-coverage of fashionable issues such as  “levelling up”, diversity, equality, transgender rights versus those who argue these affect “women born as women” (if I’m even allowed to use that phrase) – just “wokedom” [...]

February 5, 2022 // 0 Comments

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