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Arts

The Art of Presenting

As in sport the way the subject in art is presented is all.  Too highbrow and technical, you lose your  audience – too low-brow and you have not added value. I believe that enthusiasm is key and being over opinionated off-limits. I have already commented that I believe Mary Beard to be a [...]

February 12, 2020 // 0 Comments

Kirk Douglas, Otto Preminger and Paul Gambaccini

My favourite Kirk Douglas movie was neither Spartacus nor Paths of Glory but Cast a Giant Shadow (1966). This was the true story of David Daniel “Mickey” Marcus and it’s an inspiring one unlike the loosely strung “based on a true story” of many a contemporary film. Mickey [...]

February 8, 2020 // 0 Comments

In Our Time

Although the BBC has come in for a fair bit of stick on The Rust and elsewhere, I’m here to praise another radio programme – In Our Time on Radio 4. This is presented by Melvyn Bragg and each week a subject is examined by him and three academics. Yesterday’s subject was the French [...]

February 7, 2020 // 0 Comments

Pay your TV licence … or else

Yesterday I received the renewal demand for my BBC licence costing £154. Under “what else do you need to know” is: “The licence fee must be paid”. I am from that class of person – white middle class, heterosexual – that the BBC no longer want but that does not stop them [...]

February 6, 2020 // 1 Comment

It Ain’t Right …

It’s funny how the modern world operates sometimes – I’m thinking of such recent phenomena as the ‘diversity’ row over at the recent BAFTA awards which even Prince William felt necessary to complain about, even though he’s President of the ruddy organisation. As an oldie, what strikes [...]

February 5, 2020 // 0 Comments

BBC & the Arts

Andrew Marr’s reputation is for the Sunday programme in which he engages the big issues of the day with an important political figure. Personally I find the show too Marr-driven. Often the sound bites are repeated in the subsequent news bulletins. However, there is more to Andrew Marr than the [...]

February 4, 2020 // 0 Comments

Contrary to what you might think …

Good morning everyone! I’m not sure whether it’s a case of ‘What goes around, comes around’ or, alternatively perhaps, a product of something specifically to do with my encroaching senility and accompanying embracing of the joys of being gradually relieved of my responsibilities for [...]

February 2, 2020 // 0 Comments

Towards the sunny uplands?

My views upon Brexit are well-known to Rust stalwarts, so out of respect for them I shan’t rehearse them again here: furthermore I am sure that those with an interest in the subject amongst the average 23,481 new readers we gain per week [source: Bolton Research, January 2020] will work them out [...]

February 1, 2020 // 0 Comments

Trial of Christine Keeler/The Profumo Affaire

I did not watch the final episode of the trial of Christine Keeler though old-fashionedly I recorded it (I’m the over 50 generation the BBC no longer want) but I did see Tom Mangold’s documentary Keeler, Profumo, Ward and me. This was more about him – as its title suggests – than [...]

January 31, 2020 // 0 Comments

The Personal Story of David Copperfield

The controversy over this film is the degree of diversity in the casting where virtually every family seems to be of mixed parentage. My own view is to quote Oscar Wilde: “There is no such thing as a pornographic book: it’s either good or bad.” In my view this was a good film, well paced, [...]

January 30, 2020 // 0 Comments

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