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Arts

This far is far enough

Several things about the modern world bug me and one of them is the political-correctness industry. If that makes me a fuddy-duddy then I’m happy to plead guilty. I like to think that I’m all for social development and I accept that often ‘ahead of their time’ campaigners have to challenge [...]

September 3, 2015 // 0 Comments

The Trials of Jimmy Rose

Superannuated actors are having a field day: Charlotte Rampling and Tom Courtenay in 45 days, Bill Nighy in everything and anything and now Ray Winstone in The Trials of Jimmy Rose, ITV’s latest effort for the Sunday evening audience. It dealt in too many cliches, it was edgy but not [...]

August 31, 2015 // 0 Comments

Zippo’s circus

It’s been many years since I last went to a circus and yesterday I went with Jamie and his mother. Generally when entertaining him the enjoyment is a vicarious one watching his wonderment at the event. However I found Zippo’s circus, if not enthralling, certainly engaging. The circus is [...]

August 30, 2015 // 0 Comments

It’s too late to stop now

If Life teaches us anything it is that everything around us – flesh or machine – has a built-in obsolescence, and therefore shelf-life, in terms of usefulness. Arguably, anything that does not move forwards is standing still … or indeed, potentially – depending upon the perspective you’ve [...]

August 27, 2015 // 0 Comments

A blast from the past

These days it is often considered that the word ‘genius’ [broadly defined in most dictionaries as ‘an exceptional intellectual or creative power or other natural ability … (or perhaps exceptional skill in a particular area of activity)’] is over-used. For example, and exaggerating to make [...]

August 25, 2015 // 0 Comments

Churchill: the artist

When I saw that a programme on BBC 4 about Winston Churchill the artist was to be presented by Andrew Marr, I sighed as I anticipated it would be as much about Marr as Churchill. I imagine as he is one of  BBC’s star turns it was he who insisted on making the programme which was called Marr [...]

August 19, 2015 // 0 Comments

Sickert in Dieppe

On the National Rust we pride ourselves that we bridge sport and art both of which feature prominently. I cannot recall why I became a WBA  fan, it might have been that the first soccer game I watched was the 1968 Cup Final when Dad bought a colour tv and we watched Albion beat Everton 1-0. I [...]

August 14, 2015 // 0 Comments

Lessons learned by a bloody nose

Next week will mark the seventy-third anniversary of the disastrous Dieppe Raid on 19th August 1942 by British and Canadian troops. For some time the Russians had been lobbying Britain and the Allies to open a second front in north-west Europe in order to relieve the pressure they were under from [...]

August 13, 2015 // 0 Comments

Adventures in Human Being/ Gavin Francis

When I was a GP I was always amazed how little my patients understood their bodies. The odd heavy drinker had undue faith in the regenerative powers of his liver but to most you had to explain that the heart was a muscular pump. Thus Gavin Francis, a Scottish doctor, has done a service in his book [...]

August 12, 2015 // 0 Comments

And here’s a ‘V.A.T. on the house’ from me, Arfur …

Way back in the 1980s and early 1990s, though I never really bothered with it once Terry McCann (played by Dennis Waterman) had departed, because – well – Arfur without Terry wasn’t the same was it? – Thames Television’s series Minder was a staple of my recreational [...]

August 7, 2015 // 0 Comments

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