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Horse racing needs to take a look at itself in the mirror

As someone of limited interest in horse racing – jumping or flat – the recent British Horseracing Association disciplinary case, in which professional female jockey Bryony Frost called out Robbie Dunne for conducting a personal campaign of verbal abuse and threats against her over a period of [...]

December 16, 2021 // 0 Comments

West Side Story (2021)

Not many directors would risk remaking such a celebrated musical on stage and screen as West Side Story but Steven Spielberg has the chutzpah so to do. Does he pull it off? Yes and no. Yes, he is brilliant film maker and sensibly sticks to  the original. No, because the original score and [...]

December 15, 2021 // 0 Comments

My TV sporting weekend

I’m not the biggest fan of Formula One, regarding it as no more than a sponsored procession and lacking that essential ingredient of sport – ebb and flow. However, the publicity got the better of me and at 1.00 pm for the final Grand Prix at Abu Dhabi  I was tuned into Radio 5 and Channel [...]

December 13, 2021 // 0 Comments

More viewings

My picture fest continued in London with 2 visits to the Royal Academy and a view of the pictures on view at the Richard Green Gallery. I visited the Summer Show at the RA. In trying to reposition themselves for a younger audience, standards have dropped and most of the pictures –  garish in [...]

December 12, 2021 // 0 Comments

Party time at Number 10

One of the more surprising aspects of the current snowstorm of crises surrounding the besieged regime of Boris Johnson is that anyone finds it surprising. From his teenage years onwards, almost everyone who ever came into close contact with the present incumbent of Number 10 had him marked down as [...]

December 12, 2021 // 0 Comments

A la Colthard: two favourites revisited.

Up in London this week I met up with old friends at the Guinea Grill and the Wolseley. The Guinea Grill is unusual as it combines an old-fashioned small pub with an expensive restaurant specialising in fine meat. One of my friends, an ex-advertising honcho who knows his wine, commented on the [...]

December 11, 2021 // 0 Comments

Modern life (Part 37)

Completely by chance, the other day I found myself ruminating upon which was the exact moment at which I began “falling off the pace” of modern life. This was against a background in which, in casual conversations over past decades, I have long used 1985 at my answer to this question because [...]

December 11, 2021 // 0 Comments

The Courtauld Collection

In the week I saw the refurbished Courtauld Collection which by and large the art critics appreciated. I was underwhelmed. Matters were not helped as the taxi driver who took me there from Marylebone was one of those ‘miserable old gits’ who – when he was not stuck in a traffic jam when [...]

December 10, 2021 // 0 Comments

The Ashes

I really enjoy following the Ashes during these wintry nights snug under my duvet. Being a poor sleeper, waking regularly through the night, it’s a boon and I keep the radio on beside me. Early on Wednesday morning I tuned to the inevitable batting collapse. England were 62-5 with Joe Root, Ben [...]

December 9, 2021 // 0 Comments

Sickert/A Life in Art – Walker Gallery

Yesterday I travelled up to Liverpool to view the Walter Sickert exhibition at the Walker Gallery. There are two misconceptions about Sickert – that he was quintessentially English and that he was our leading post-impressionist. In fact he was born in Munich in 1860 of Danish and Irish [...]

December 8, 2021 // 0 Comments

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