Just in

Arts

Thoughts on the First Test

I hope that after this most enthralling of matches the media – conventional and social – does not turn on Ben Stokes and Baz-ball after the Aussies won, albeit narrowly, the vital First Test. Of course catches were dropped – and the declaration deprived England of vital runs [...]

June 22, 2023 // 0 Comments

The U S Open

The US Open was won by a relatively unknown Wyndham Clark – holding off the challenge of Rory McIlroy, who once again faltered in his final round and the in-form Scottie Scheffler. It was held at the prestigious Los Angeles Country Club but only had 4,000 spectators outside sponsors and club [...]

June 20, 2023 // 0 Comments

Patriotic football allegiances

In the week I had a long lunch with an old friend of mine – an Arsenal fanatic. He told me once that he was the only English supporter of Benfica in the 1968 European Cup Final against Manchester United. He now said he was firmly behind Inter Milan and this time I believe he did not walk [...]

June 11, 2023 // 0 Comments

Mike + The Mechanics at the Guildhall, Portsmouth (28th May)

Last Sunday evening the Mem Sahib and Yours Truly travelled to the Portsmouth Guildhall (capacity 2,500) in order to attend the last concert of the current UK tour of the musical combo known as Mike + The Mechanics. Rusters of a certain age (mine is 71) are unlikely to need it, but for those [...]

May 30, 2023 // 0 Comments

The process of waving goodbye

There comes a time in the affairs of men and mice when something happens – one might describe it as hitting a watershed – which causes us, for example, to let go of a previously-held firm conviction and switch to another, or perhaps it involves accepting that we cannot do this or that which [...]

May 27, 2023 // 0 Comments

The Age of Innocence/Edith Wharton

Having enjoyed The Reef I moved onto Edith Wharton’s best-known work The Age of Innocence. Published in 1920 when she was 58 it won her the Pulitzer prize , the first woman to achieve this. The central character is Archer Newland, a young and rich lawyer, and the novel is set in the Gilded Age of [...]

May 25, 2023 // 0 Comments

Israel: A Twice Promised Land (PBS) and Land of our Father (BBC4)

There were two interesting documentaries on Israel on Tuesday night. The first on PBS supported my view that 1967 was a watershed in Israeli history. In that year Israel achieved a significant victory in just six days over their invading Arab neighbours. Up till then Israel had global sympathy as a [...]

May 18, 2023 // 0 Comments

Ten Pound Poms

My late parents knew an eccentric travel agent who was involved in the £10 scheme to attract white British people to Australia. I can recall a visit to the docks to see sad faced immigrants rejecting one life for another. This was the force behind BBC One’s latest drama. It featured one family [...]

May 16, 2023 // 0 Comments

Mephisto (1981)

This Hungarian/German production, directed by Istvan Szabo and based on a novel by Klaus Mann, launched the international film career of Klaus Maria Brandauer who was later to appear as lead villain in a Bond film. It’s story is of an ambitious but not especially talented German actor Henrik [...]

May 11, 2023 // 0 Comments

April in Spain/John Banville

John Banville is an Irish writer who has won the Booker Prize for The Sea and written murder mystery novels under the pseudonym Benjamin Black. This novel has a double narrator – psychopath hitman Terry Tice and retired Dublin pathologist John Quirke – and a double setting – [...]

May 9, 2023 // 0 Comments

1 … 26 27 28 29 30 … 184

Copyright © 2026 The National Rust | Design by Premonition