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Arts

$50m art swindle/BBC 2

This documentary is the story of art dealer Michel Cohen who went from rags to riches and back to rags again. Born in impoverished circumstance in France after the war he came to the USA with a friend in the 80s. He bought a stack of lithographs and sold them. He realised that he had a talent to [...]

September 25, 2019 // 0 Comments

Another fading branch of the Establishment

The vexed issue of the future of public service broadcasting in the UK seems to be back on the agenda. Hard on the heels of, firstly, the findings of the BBC’s own internal complaints executive that Newsnight presenter Emily Maitlis had been too ‘persistent and personal’ to the point of [...]

September 25, 2019 // 0 Comments

The Rescue Man/ Anthony Quinn

Some writers once they create a popular character drive him/her through a series of novels: the late Philip Kerr was a case in point with Bernie Gunther. Others like William Boyd or David Mitchell will surprise the reader with totally different novel every time. Anthony Quinn is of this school. He [...]

September 13, 2019 // 0 Comments

Remind you of anyone?

When times get tough and every news bulletin seems to bring details of new chaotic developments to your living room that out-do those of the day before, the average UK citizen could be forgiven for thinking that the world has gone plumb loco. Boris Johnson became Prime Minister on 24th July – not [...]

September 12, 2019 // 0 Comments

Ivon Hitchens /Pallant Gallery

I like to say “I’ve a Hitchens” – the alliteration being sufficiently close to Ivon Hitchens that many think I possess one of his, rather than one of his son John. Whether by accident or design, John’s rectangular abstract landscapes of the Downs resemble his Dad’s work in [...]

September 3, 2019 // 0 Comments

The Reunion/ Radio 4

It’s good to see The Reunion back on the Radio 4 airwaves. Superbly presented by Sue McGregor it revisits an incident or event of the not too distant past with the key characters recollecting and in some cases still arguing. This week was Death On the Rock, when the SAS killed some IRA men in [...]

August 30, 2019 // 0 Comments

Oklahoma! – Chichester Festival Theatre

Readers might recall that when I purchased my matinee ticket for Oklahoma the box office informed me it was a “relaxed” performance. This was defined in the programme as one for those in the autistic spectrum. The box office lady said I should expect some attending to shout out and move about [...]

August 30, 2019 // 0 Comments

Inside Aldi/ Channel 5

Last night I watched a fascinating documentary on the German – but now international – supermarket chain Aldi. In 1946 Frau Albrecht opened a food store in Essen and her two sons Karl and Theo took the basic model of making the food sold as cheap as possible and turned this into a [...]

August 27, 2019 // 0 Comments

The Man that Got Away/Lynne Truss

Lynne Truss is an established comic writer. This is her second Constable Twitten detective novel which is also highly humourous. At the heart of this fiction set in Brighton in the 1950s lies not Constable Peregrine Twitten (named after a path way in Rottingdean) but Mrs Palmeira (a well-known [...]

August 20, 2019 // 0 Comments

Perception and memories can play tricks

As I set off upon today’s post I’m conscious that I don’t know quite where I’m going or indeed where I’m going to end up. However – in the spirit of the famous catchphrase of Alfred E. Newman, the hero of America’s Mad magazine of which I was an avid reader about fifty-five years ago [...]

August 16, 2019 // 0 Comments

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