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Tribute to Ted Dexter

Yesterday I attended a MCC tribute in the Long Room at Lords to Ted Dexter. I felt honoured to be invited as – although I had got to know Ted well these past few years and his charming wife Sue too  in Nice-  I had not expected to be invited to such a gathering of cricketing luminaries. I [...]

September 17, 2022 // 0 Comments

Rugby’s Premiership – a commercial head-case?

When it comes to one’s specialist subjects, interests and hobbies (not least favourite sports) over the course of decades one’s perceptions of the pertinent issues of any specific moment, as formed by one’s personal impressions and attitudes – taken together with media reports, [...]

September 17, 2022 // 0 Comments

New Zealand All Blacks 37 Wallabies 34

Rarely have I experienced such a dramatic and controversial end to a rugby international. After trailing by 19 points at one stage, the Wallabies came back to 34-32 and – with the klaxon about to sound – the All Blacks mounted their last attack. The French referee Matthieu Reynald [...]

September 16, 2022 // 0 Comments

Reflections upon the death of HM The Queen

I suspect like many Rusters over the past week, I have taken the news of the Queen’s death last Thursday – and watched all the resulting consequences, including the carefully-rehearsed-down-to-the-last-detail administrative and ancient (and some not so ancient) preparations, traditions, [...]

September 15, 2022 // 0 Comments

Claude Chabrol and Jean Luc Godard

For me, the two directors that are truly Masters of Suspense are Claude Chabrol and Alfred Hitchcock. Chabrol, from the New Wave of the 1950s, was avowedly French whilst Hitchcock, a master of British realism, studied under Fritz Lang at the UFA studio, Britain and Hollywood. Yesterday I watched [...]

September 15, 2022 // 0 Comments

Ken Howard (1932-2022)

I was more than saddened to hear my old friend Ken Howard has passed away. A brilliant painter of light with an ebullient personality, Ken was the son of a Kilburn carpenter. He got his breakthrough as an artist covering ‘The Troubles’, commissioned by the Imperial War Museum, though not [...]

September 13, 2022 // 0 Comments

Act of Oblivion/Robert Harris

Critics have hailed Robert Harris’ latest novel as his best since Fatherland.   It’s historical fiction. Charles II, on being restored to the throne, issued a blanket pardon to all who fought for Parliament except those responsible for his father’s death known as the Regicides. Two such [...]

September 13, 2022 // 0 Comments

An absorbing day at the Oval

Yesterday I travelled up from the coast to watch an always thrilling day’s play in which England batted twice and set up victory. I confess I had my doubts about Ben Stokes as captain: a brilliant cricketer indubitably, but not a shrewd enough tactician and probably another Freddie Flintoff or [...]

September 12, 2022 // 0 Comments

Sense and Sensibility (1995)/director Ang Lee

My comment that Jane Austen is better enjoyed by film than book were tested by this 1995 film directed by the esteemed Korean director Ang  Lee. It had a strong cast of Hugh Grant, Kate Winslet, Emma Thompson, Imelda Staunton, Elizabeth Spriggs, Robert Hardy, Harriet Walter, Tom Wilkinson, Alan [...]

September 9, 2022 // 0 Comments

Fitness campaign report

A while back now – to be honest as I type I can’t remember exactly when – during a WhatsApp chat with my 39 year old daughter, of all things I had cause to mention that I had just amassed forty days’ worth of consecutive “10,000 steps per day” (a “standard” that many fitness gurus [...]

September 9, 2022 // 0 Comments

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