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Arts

I’d rather play Philadelphia

About fifteen years ago, I used to play golf regularly with a chap that I knew was interested in the arts – he and his wife were frequent visits to art galleries, the opera and (I thought) the theatre. One day I mentioned that I was shortly to make a rare excursion into the West End to see a [...]

June 20, 2014 // 0 Comments

Way to go, Bruce!

For my first selection – in an occasional series of great music live performances available to view on the internet – I have no hesitation in choosing Rosalita (Come Out Tonight) by American blue collar icon Bruce Springsteen, a song that appears on his 1973 second album The Wild, the Innocent, [...]

June 15, 2014 // 0 Comments

Adapting creative ideas from the past for future exploitation

Down at the coast for the next ten days to sail, I spent most of yesterday on the Mountfield sit-upon motor-mower, playing catch-up on the ‘painting the Forth Bridge’ chore of clipping the various lawns. The Mountfield does the business okay but, from a layman’s perspective, comes with an [...]

June 14, 2014 // 0 Comments

Tribute time

Any premature passing is regrettable and a tragedy. In this regard, yesterday’s announcement of the sudden death of comedian Rik Mayall at the age of fifty-six certainly qualifies and, generally-speaking – not just in these sad circumstances – if you cannot say something positive about an [...]

June 10, 2014 // 0 Comments

The Wolf of Wall Street

An astute film buff I know suggested that, since I admired Taxi Driver and Goodfellas, I should abandon my prejudice of contemporary American cinema and see The Wolf of Wall Street. I was doing the weekly  shop when I saw the DVD and duly bought it. Based on the true story of Jordan Belfort, it [...]

June 10, 2014 // 0 Comments

With some trepidation

Reports of an unlikely reunion of The Kinks reached us at the weekend – ‘unlikely’ because, as is a well-known fact of rock music folklore, the relationship between siblings Ray and Dave Davies is so notoriously fractious. There is no general rule preventing an artist – or indeed artiste [...]

June 9, 2014 // 0 Comments

Goodfellas

Readers know that I am no admirer of contemporary American cinema. However there is one genre where they lead the world: the mobster movie. We have had back and white era classics such as  Scarface, White Heat, The Petrified Forest, The Asphalt Jungle. There was a significant change in 1972 with [...]

June 6, 2014 // 0 Comments

Those were the days

I don’t know why or how, but I was reminded today of the famous roadside café scene from Five Easy Pieces (1970), directed by Bob Rafleson, one of Jack Nicholson’s early great movies. Looking at it again, one is reminded both by how good Jack was in those days – and indeed, how [...]

June 6, 2014 // 0 Comments

The Truth about the Harry Quebert Affair

The Truth about the Harry Quebert Affair is a bestseller, having sold 2 million copies and been translated into 18 languages. The author is swiss ,Joel Dicker,  and this is his first novel. He is not yet 30 – a startling career beckons, or does it? The novel begins with a writer Marcus [...]

June 5, 2014 // 0 Comments

A memorable experience

Do stop me if I’ve told you this one before! Yesterday, as I was tidying up the sitting room, in a cabinet – amongst my CD collection – I came across a battered old cassette album of operatic arias sung by the Bulgarian dramatic soprano Ghena Dimitrova (1941-2005). I had no means of [...]

June 2, 2014 // 0 Comments

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