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A Very English Deceit/Malcolm Balen

This is an account of one of the biggest financial scandals in England’s history – The South Sea Bubble – and well told, briskly but informatively by Malcolm Balen. In brief when George I acceded to the the throne as the first Hanoverian at the start of the eighteenth century the [...]

August 4, 2023 // 0 Comments

Looking back…

I am of an age – 70 next March – when inevitably one tends to look more back than forward. I’m the early 1980s I worked for a South African company with an irritable, growling office manager nicknamed The General.  He once quoted to me an Afrikaans’ saying after a particularly [...]

June 4, 2023 // 0 Comments

Mike + The Mechanics at the Guildhall, Portsmouth (28th May)

Last Sunday evening the Mem Sahib and Yours Truly travelled to the Portsmouth Guildhall (capacity 2,500) in order to attend the last concert of the current UK tour of the musical combo known as Mike + The Mechanics. Rusters of a certain age (mine is 71) are unlikely to need it, but for those [...]

May 30, 2023 // 0 Comments

It never rains but it pours

Comedian Frankie Howerd traditionally used to gain a titter of laughter – often just after he’d shared a conspiratorial juicy and/or vicious put-down of a fellow member of his cast – by admonishing his (live or television) audience with an arch aside “No, don’t laugh [...]

May 30, 2023 // 0 Comments

The process of waving goodbye

There comes a time in the affairs of men and mice when something happens – one might describe it as hitting a watershed – which causes us, for example, to let go of a previously-held firm conviction and switch to another, or perhaps it involves accepting that we cannot do this or that which [...]

May 27, 2023 // 0 Comments

You couldn’t make it up (Series 11, Episode 4)

The other day I met up for a pub lunch with an old pal [hereafter referred to as “A” in order to protect both the innocent and guilty] – well, to be brutally direct about it, actually a friend of an old pal – whom I used to know quite well but haven’t seen for about four years. In the [...]

February 22, 2023 // 0 Comments

more techie woes

A common gripe amongst us elderly Rusters is to be forced into the smart phone/iPad world only to find it’s not working and there is no one to call. I have spent most of this month under the incorrect assumption that I must pay the balance of an invoice by the end of it. I happened to speak to [...]

October 27, 2022 // 0 Comments

Frustration – a whole new level

One of the recurring themes featured on this organ is a subset of the oldies’ general complaint that Fings Ain’t Wot They Used T’Be [© the 1960 musical by Lionel Bart], viz. that one of the most heinous iniquities inflicted upon the human race in the 21st Century is that of large – and [...]

October 25, 2022 // 0 Comments

Boxing in the dock (again)

The debacle of the recent non-fight between Chris Eubank Jnr and Conor Benn – actually a bout cancelled by the British Board of Boxing Control as “against the interests of the sport”, apparently  despite the protests (up to and including threatened legal action) of promoters [...]

October 15, 2022 // 0 Comments

Boxing’s muddy waters never settle

Since  the dawn of human time the “sport” of boxing – gladiatorial combat using only fists – has been inextricably linked with corrupt practices. Where should I begin? Shoe-horns or knuckle-dusters in gloves? “Fixed” contests, with or without boxers (from [...]

October 12, 2022 // 0 Comments

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