Blogs

The Rock Pool (Cyril Connolly) and The Shot (Philip Kerr)

I am an enthusiast and when I review a book it’s generally in the hope that it will be read. However in the above two I have no such aspirations. I must have read The Rock Pool at least 40 years ago when I had a greater interest in writers of the 1930s. It struck me as a louche account of [...]

May 15, 2021 // 0 Comments

Second jab

Yesterday, later than most, I had my second jab at the Brighton Racecourse. My first was on February 18 and I was getting a tad worried that I had received no notification about the second. The theme of this week’s Rust is speak to a human and I called the Racecourse hotline. The recorded message [...]

May 14, 2021 // 0 Comments

There is always someone worse off

Astrology may not be a subject dominating the pages of the Rust but frustration with the internet is. I experienced this first thing with a simple – I hoped – procedure. I had rented a guest flat in my complex – scarcely used because of lockdown. I terminated this as soon as I [...]

May 13, 2021 // 0 Comments

Astrology matters?

It’s fair to say that this is not only my first post on astrology but that of any Rust correspondent. It came about when Alice Mansfield and I had a conversation in which I asserted art was a poor investment. In response she recommended the Waldy and Bendy podcast. I liken a podcast to being [...]

May 12, 2021 // 0 Comments

Goodbye To All That (Mark 2)

Some sixty-plus years ago now I was sent aged 7 (actually I turned 8 two months into my first term) to a boarding prep school in East Sussex, an experience which – after about a week of initial nightly blubbing – I grew to love and thrive upon. Like the bulk of my contemporaries, [...]

May 12, 2021 // 0 Comments

Garrick Higgo – a new golfing star

The name Garrick Higgo might mean little to you but it soon will. The 21 year old South African has now won two European tour events in the Canarian swing of the Tour when he won the Tenerife open by 6 strokes from the equally exotically-named Aussie Maverck Antcliff. Previously he had won in Grand [...]

May 10, 2021 // 0 Comments

The art of serendipity

Like I suspect many Rusters I follow my colleague Algy Belville’s posts on the wine trade avidly and – though certainly I would never claim to be an expert – I should estimate that over the past six decades I have drunk very nearly my share of wines of every variety that any sane [...]

May 10, 2021 // 0 Comments

The Borrowers/Mary Norton

Just before my late grandfather passed away in 1964 he gave me a gift 0f 5 children’s books, one of which was The Borrowers by Mary Norton. It’s a story of underground creatures that live beneath a house and surface to take things. I thought it might be long out of publication but no, [...]

May 9, 2021 // 0 Comments

What’s worth keeping (and what isn’t)

In recent times I’ve had the opportunity to re-evaluate my past personal history with some fascinating results. Nearly thirty years ago now my first wife died of cancer and – for a change of scenery – my kids, then quite young, and I moved some seven miles as the crow flies to a new home in [...]

May 9, 2021 // 0 Comments

The greed of the Super Golf League

The Saudi-backed Super Golf League of 40-odd professionals contesting 18 events bears more than a superficial resemblance to football’s European Super League. Of course golf clubs are in the bag not sporting superpowers but nonetheless some of the proposed participators have had their success in [...]

May 8, 2021 // 0 Comments

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Confusion grows as time goes by

May 16, 2021 // 0 Comments

In terms of the fundamental conflict between what has made the human race tick since pre-history (not least naked common sense) on the one hand – and the fashionable [...]
The Rock Pool (Cyril Connolly) and The Shot (Philip Kerr)

May 15, 2021 // 0 Comments

I am an enthusiast and when I review a book it’s generally in the hope that it will be read. However in the above two I have no such aspirations. I must have read The [...]
Second jab

May 14, 2021 // 0 Comments

Yesterday, later than most, I had my second jab at the Brighton Racecourse. My first was on February 18 and I was getting a tad worried that I had received no notification [...]
There is always someone worse off

May 13, 2021 // 0 Comments

Astrology may not be a subject dominating the pages of the Rust but frustration with the internet is. I experienced this first thing with a simple – I hoped – [...]
Astrology matters?

May 12, 2021 // 0 Comments

It’s fair to say that this is not only my first post on astrology but that of any Rust correspondent. It came about when Alice Mansfield and I had a conversation in which [...]