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This woman’s work is not yet done

The sudden announcement that legendary UK singer Kate Bush will be undertaking her first ‘live’ gigs in thirty-five years (the Before The Dawn tour) took the media world by storm yesterday. As things stand, it seems that she will be playing 15 dates at what is now called London Eventim Apollo [...]

March 22, 2014 // 0 Comments

A close shave

In my youth I had a stint at an advertising agency. I did not learn too much about commerce, as in those days the admen were out for lengthy lunches. However, I did receive one piece of advice which I wish I followed yesterday. Seeing my young cheeks nicked by shaving scars, one of the executives [...]

March 22, 2014 // 0 Comments

A la Colthard : The Cherwell Boathouse

My old friend Sebastian, who is an art collector, invited me for a birthday treat to the Cherwell Boathouse in Oxford. He first wanted to view the Henry and Rose Pearlman collection at the Ashmolean: Cezanne and the Modern. Pearlman, an American tycoon, made his money in refrigeration. After [...]

March 20, 2014 // 0 Comments

The baggage of old age

Becoming frustrated with the inefficiencies, stupidities, red tape, cock-ups and lack of common sense of politicians … the civil service … local government … tradesmen … just anyone and everyone who ever has authority and/or control of something that you want/need or are entitled to … is [...]

March 20, 2014 // 0 Comments

Worthy recollections of WW1

In the early 1960s, the BBC made a documentary series called The Great War. Last week, on BBC2, as part of its WW1 centenary commemorations, the corporation put out a programme called I Was There: The Great War Interviews, featuring WW1 veterans talking about their experiences, many of them coming [...]

March 19, 2014 // 0 Comments

The Big ‘Can’t Pay’ Debt Debate

Last night, channel-hopping whilst waiting for something (anything) to watch on my television, I chanced upon a truly awful television programme called The Big ‘Can’t Pay’ Debt Debate [Channel Five, 6.30pm]. I came to it at about 6.50pm, so witnessed only the last one-third of it. Richard [...]

March 19, 2014 // 0 Comments

Will the last person to leave please switch the lights out

For anyone beyond the first flush of youth, I guess it’s a given that our thought turn occasionally to mortality, the concept that we aren’t going to be around forever and that – at some point in the future – life on Earth will go on without us. Maybe. Here’s a link [...]

March 18, 2014 // 0 Comments

Falling behind in life’s race

There is or was a smallish – by which I mean A5-sized – magazine called The Chap. It has about it the air of a foppish 1950s-style gentleman’s publication produced by a clique of like-minded ex-public schoolboys as a vanity project with no regard for popular success, i.e. just the sort of [...]

March 17, 2014 // 0 Comments

Pull the other one, please!

We learn from media reports today today that feminist groups – and particularly eight women who were allegedly duped into having relationships with male police officers – are up in arms about a new code of practice which does not absolutely forbid undercover agents from having sex with members [...]

March 16, 2014 // 0 Comments

Stories from the past

I am down on the south coast, spending the weekend with my father, who is eighty-eight, partly in order to watch the climax of rugby’s Six Nations tournament together. Sitting outside on his terrace in the bright spring sunshine, he came out with two anecdotes that I had not heard previously – [...]

March 15, 2014 // 0 Comments

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