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Arts

Rumpole and the barrow boy

There are many reasons why I enjoy Rumpole (Talking Pictures channel, every Wednesday at 8.0pm). The programme is so well constructed with chambers life, the trial and the Rumpole marriage all possessing the same leitmotiv. In last week’s episode Rumpole and the Barrow Boy the common thread was [...]

June 19, 2021 // 0 Comments

Who cares?

I  have titled this post “ who cares?’ as it will be two words applied in it.   My first target is Clive Tyldesley .   He is a football commentator for whom I have never cared as he is full of verbiage  .   When he delivered  his self obsessed rant after being demoted to ITV’s number [...]

June 18, 2021 // 0 Comments

Fake or Fortune BBC4 – (Mondays 8 pm)

For all its irritations I was pleased to watch another series of Fake or Fortune.   Philip Mould, the cool art dealer, has been upgraded to joint presenter alongside Fiona Bruce and the courteous Dr Bendor Grosvenor is back as art expert and historian. This week they considered the authenticity [...]

June 16, 2021 // 0 Comments

Catching the end of it

As regular Rusters will be aware, I recently began my umpteenth fitness campaign in an eternal “start-stop” routine that I have been conducting for the best part of thirty years. Before I embark upon my “Topic Du Jour”, for the benefit of the trainspotter-type fraternity amongst our [...]

June 14, 2021 // 0 Comments

My art week

This week I continued to enjoy the reopening of museums with visits to the Barbican for the Dubuffet exhibition, to the Wallace Collection for the unification of the two famous Rubens landscapes and to the Pallant gallery for Degas to Picasso. The Barbican, with its architecture of bleak concrete [...]

June 12, 2021 // 0 Comments

En Plein Soleil (1960)

The first film in the Rosen Multiplex Alain Delon season is En Plein Soleil a 1960 adaptation of the Patricia Highsmith novel later made into an English film version by Antony Minghella starring Matt Damon, Jude Law, Gwyneth Paltrow and Cate Blanchett. I prefer this  earlier French version [...]

June 8, 2021 // 0 Comments

Get your hand-cart ready, we’re all going to Hell

I make no apology for the fact that my post today runs the risk of being pigeonholed as the pathetically-sad ramblings of a sterotypical old, out of touch, git who epitomises everything that 21st Century, “woke” ‘Generation X’, Millennial youngsters around the globe waste their time blaming [...]

June 7, 2021 // 0 Comments

David Hockney and Churchill and his Artistic Allies.

Yesterday I viewed two totally different exhibitions, David Hockney’s Arrival of Spring at the Royal Academy and Churchill and his Artistic Allies at Christie’s. I am rather conflicted on Hockney. On one hand I can only respect a man aged 83 who relocates in Normandy to paint the spring by a [...]

June 5, 2021 // 0 Comments

Operation Pedestal/Max Hastings

Pursuing my interest in the lesser known theatres of war in World War Two I read Max Hastings’ account of the fleet that battled to Malta in 1942 with great interest and enjoyment as it’s well researched and most readable. After significant defeats at Singapore and Tobruk in 1942, [...]

June 1, 2021 // 0 Comments

Rugby mayhem as the crowds return

With the Bank Holiday in full swing and rugby union joining other sports in letting crowds back in – well, in rugby’s case only home fans to 25% of ground capacity – yesterday, with the English Premiership’s league season approaching its climax, I chose to tune in to watch BT Sport’s [...]

May 30, 2021 // 0 Comments

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