Arts

Yellowface/Rebecca Kuang

This is an impressive novel recommended by Harriet Gilbert on A Good Read and presently Radio 4’s Book at Bedtime. The story is of an unsuccessful writer Juniper Hayward who is friendly at Yale with a far more successful one – Athena Liu. She meets up with her buddy in Washington DC who, [...]

July 19, 2024 // 0 Comments

Adult Book/Malcolm Knox

If i were to describe this novel in one word it would be scabrous. Malcolm Knox is a Sydney journalist and the novel is set in its North Shore. It features the Brand family. John is a doctor who died age 62 after becoming a porn addict. He has 3 sons by his ambitious wife Margaret: Davis, also [...]

July 17, 2024 // 0 Comments

A sporting Saturday on the sofa

Saturday was my normal sports-fest watching two marvellous rugby internationals and the highlights of the Tour de France. First up was the second Test match at Eden Park, Auckland where the All Blacks are undefeated for 30 years. Though England ran up a small lead their young side never looked [...]

July 14, 2024 // 0 Comments

Sporting heroes

My newspaper of choice is The Times. My routine is to buy the paper version, skim-read the sports section and – to fight off dementia – do the quiz and chess puzzle. There is a section on the Euros within Section 2 largely dedicated to the Arts. Yesterday the section padded out the [...]

July 13, 2024 // 0 Comments

Richie Benaud’s Blue Suede Shoes/David Kynaston and Harry Ricketts

This is the story of a classic Ashes series in 1961 in the context of two very different captains Peter May and Richie Benaud. Peter May (Charterhouse and Cambridge) was more patrician, a classical batsman but cold and distant from his men. Richie Benaud was an adventurous captain but also a [...]

July 8, 2024 // 0 Comments

WW2: War in Crete/PBS

Pursuing my interest in the less well-known theatres of World War Two, I followed with much interest and no little enjoyment the PBS documentary of the Crete Campaign. Crete was in 1941 the largest airborne invasion ever by the elite Wehrmacht paratroops known as the Fallschirmjager. The Allied [...]

July 7, 2024 // 0 Comments

The weekend sport (so far)

On Friday I watched the first of the Euro quarter finals. Spain v Germany matched the recent champions against the hosts in which the former came on top. It was a vibrant, full-blooded game which tipped into nasty when Tony Kroos put Pedri out for the rest of the tournament. I thought Spain [...]

July 7, 2024 // 0 Comments

Burghley House

I joined Daffers for the trip to Burghley House. The grounds are staggering. We must have walked for half an hour through parklands before we reached the House itself. I decided to leave the more ornate gardens for my next visit. It was a long walk back to the hotel and no benches for our weary [...]

July 3, 2024 // 0 Comments

Fry Gallery/Saffron Walden

Friday I visited the Fry Gallery to see Eric Ravilious and the other artists of the nearby colony of Great Bardfield which included Edward Bawden and John Aldridge whose work was also exhibited. It’s a small museum of basically one room which is also a shop. Eric Ravilious was a Sussex painter [...]

June 30, 2024 // 0 Comments

All That Glitters/Orlando Whitfield

This is an account of the friendship between two art dealers – Orlando Whitfield and Inigo Philbrook – who met at Goldsmiths College. After an internship at the White Cube Gallery of mega-successful art dealer Jay Jopling, Inigo Philbrook made a fortune as a dealer in the secondary [...]

June 23, 2024 // 0 Comments

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ITV COVERAGE OF CHELTENHAM

March 14, 2026 // 0 Comments

I am in the camp of watching on tv rather than attending for the 3 Cs: cost , convenience and comfort. With the cost of travelling and attending Cheltenham and last [...]
Max Schmelling/ The Good German

March 4, 2026 // 0 Comments

In the unlikely event that I would be asked to nominate a Great Life on Matthew Parris ‘ show my choice would be the Black Uhlan Max Schmelling. In the 1930s thee [...]
The Tanner Report : Fulham 2 spurs 1

March 3, 2026 // 0 Comments

Prior to Fulham ‘s comfortable win over Spurs (2-1) I watched the big match Revisited featuring Chelsea 1 Arsenal 2 i guess in the early 70s It would be foolish to [...]
The Six Nations

February 24, 2026 // 0 Comments

The Six Nations continues to throw up surprises. England could not bounce back against Ireland , a resurgent Wales gave Scotland à close game with the Millennium Stadium [...]
Brentford 0 Brighton 2

February 23, 2026 // 0 Comments

The heat is off Fabian Hürzeler with Brighton ‘s 1st win in 13 games. Club owner Tony Bloom was not at the G Tech stadium due to a long planned family engagement but had [...]