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T20 World Cup semi finals

I wish I could enjoy T20 cricket – I really do. I watched both semifinals. I am deeply unsatisfied. Firstly, the technique is so awful as you constantly see slashing across the line. The only elegant stroke I can recall was a sumptuous six from Virat Kohli. Kohli had his feet in place, [...]

November 11, 2022 // 0 Comments

Something’s Got to Give (2006)

Somehow I missed this “rom com for wrinklies” when it was released but it came on the radar in the Sky Arts Discovering Frances McDormand programme. The stars are Hollywood royalty Jack Nicholson, playing 63 year-old music mogul and superannuated lothario Harry Seaburn and Diane Keaton [...]

November 8, 2022 // 0 Comments

Media comments on the sporting day

Yesterday was largely spent on my sofa following sport on BT Sport, Sky Sports, Amazon Prime, Radio 5 and Talk Sport. I was largely unimpressed by the coverage. BT Sport covered Chelsea 0 Arsenal 1 – a featureless match. In the second half I switched to Talksport 2 where Clive Tyldesley [...]

November 7, 2022 // 0 Comments

England 29 Argentina 30

It is a fact of elite sporting life that in the final analysis of historical perspective everyone involved – from the back-room staff, kit-men, physiotherapists trainers, managers and coaches right through to the players, athletes and participants are judged by their statistics and results – [...]

November 7, 2022 // 0 Comments

The Romantic/William Boyd

You never what to expect in a William Boyd novel but – like Any Human Heart – this is a sweeping cradle-to-grave story of Cashel Ross set in the nineteenth century. Cashel was born in Cork. He was told his parents had died when their boat capsized and he was brought up by his Scottish [...]

November 3, 2022 // 0 Comments

a la Colthard/The Spread Eagle Midhurst

There was something reassuring about this traditional hotel in Midhurst, West Sussex, where my room had a proper key – not a card – the service was friendly but professional and there were floral china cups. Upon arriving last Sunday I ate smoked salmon and egg sandwiches with a glass [...]

November 2, 2022 // 0 Comments

Only one in three?!?!?

Apart possibly from corporate organisations’ automated phone call systems that never let the customer speak to a human being, the biggest scourge upon the average member of the British public’s “quiet enjoyment of life as it should be lived” must surely be the existence of [...]

November 2, 2022 // 0 Comments

White Lotus (second series).

There is always the clear risk that the second series of a successful programme will be greeted with more criticism than enthusiasm. To overcome this you need something that is fresh but adheres to the qualities that made the series one of the most popular broadcast on Sky Atlantic. The obvious [...]

November 1, 2022 // 0 Comments

Petworth Literary Festival/Simon Sebag Montefiore

Yesterday I attended the Petworth Literary Festival where Simon Sebag Montefiore was interviewed by Davide Soskin about his new book The World.    This is a history of the world through families. His thesis is that the treatment of history is too narrow – whether of a country or a [...]

October 31, 2022 // 0 Comments

In Our Time/Wilfred Owen

One of my favourite wireless programmes is In Our Time presented by Melvyn Bragg at 9-00 on Radio 4 every Thursday. The topic varies weekly and Bragg assembles a team of academics well-qualified to discuss it. Yesterday’s programme featured the World War poet Wilfred Owen. My connection with [...]

October 30, 2022 // 0 Comments

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