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Arts

Trucking into town

From time to time, as part of a bonding process with our North American cousins and their descendants, the Stuart men-folk on both sides of the Atlantic swap suggestions for rock/pop gigs that might be worth attending. About ten years ago we in Blighty received a strong recommendation from our [...]

March 1, 2015 // 0 Comments

The January Window/Philip Kerr

  Football is not especially well served by literature. The best is probably The Damned United by David Peace on Brian Clough’s reign at Leeds United. Hunter Davies broke new ground when he wrote a revealing account of Tottenham in The Glory Game. Whether it’s fact or fiction or in [...]

February 24, 2015 // 0 Comments

Viewed from the sofa

Given that I’m retired, I’m probably happier than most hombres to admit that I watch far more television than is good for me. I once read somewhere that if kids spend more than four hours per day in front of the box they are likely to turn into brain-damaged dysfunctional adults with minimal [...]

February 21, 2015 // 0 Comments

Sleep in Peace Tonight/James MacManus

All the reading on the National Rust these days appears to be on the Second World War. I have just finished “Sleep in Peace Tonight” and could not commend it too highly. It is fiction based on fact on the visit of President Roosevelt’s friend and envoy Harry Hopkins to Britain in [...]

February 19, 2015 // 0 Comments

The Hard Problem

Coming to the new Stoppard late, I can view it from the perspective of notices that were far from praiseworthy. The general view was that the theories of consciousness (neuro biology v physics) were too opaque and the characters that pronounced them too unsympathetic. I agree with the first, [...]

February 14, 2015 // 0 Comments

Opportunity to re-assess a great artist

Here’s a recommendation for readers of the National Rust with an artistic bent – the National Portrait Gallery’s exhibition of John Singer Sargent paintings, as reviewed by Jonathan Jones today on the website of THE [...]

February 11, 2015 // 0 Comments

Face to Face

Last week I observed that Jeremy Paxman’s complaint that Winston Churchill was a giant compared to today’s miniatures applies just as well to broadcasters. Perhaps mindful of this a friend kindly sent me a dvd compilation of the 39 interviews presented by John Freeman in the famous Face [...]

February 10, 2015 // 0 Comments

The Theory of Everything

Whilst no film buff like Neil Rosen I do enjoy a good biopic and I recently saw The Theory of Everything, being the life of Professor Steven Hawking. At first sight it’s rather an ambitious topic for a film. Beyond it being the theory of black holes, no one really comprehends Hawking’s [...]

February 6, 2015 // 0 Comments

Hopeless hype

We are nine days away from the outdated annual ritual of Valentine’s Day – and before anyone suggests it, my somewhat jaundiced view of the tradition has nothing whatsoever to do with the fact that the last time my husband last ‘made a meal of it’ (literally or otherwise) was so long ago [...]

February 5, 2015 // 0 Comments

I Can’t Begin To Tell You/ Elizabeth Buchan

Maintaining the theme of fiction set in the less well known theatres of warfare in World War Two, I have just read I Can’t Begin to Tell You by Elizabeth Buchan. Given the fast moving pace of the novel and the adventures of the heroine Kay I wondered if the writer was in any way related to [...]

February 5, 2015 // 0 Comments

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