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Fauda/4th series

My partner Joanna aptly calls is “Foul Up” as the Elite Israeli defence unit headed up by Dorian – once the bodyguard of Arnold Schwarzenegger – goes into its fourth series. They always seem to mess up. Audacity meets chaos (the actual translation of Fauda) which makes for good [...]

January 24, 2023 // 0 Comments

A la Colthard/Tutto

The owner of Tutto, Raz Helalat, is one of Brighton’s best restaurateurs. He started with the the Coal Shed, which still serves the best steaks in Brighton, opened the Salt Room in the Hilton Metropole and – more recently – the excellent Burnt Orange. Now he has launched an upmarket [...]

January 22, 2023 // 0 Comments

Stonehouse

Whilst I enjoyed this three-part series broadcast over 3 nights on ITV, there are two problems with this genre. Firstly, they require not much writing creativity as you already have a story with characters and secondly, how can you differentiate between what is fact and what is faction? Apparently [...]

January 5, 2023 // 0 Comments

Cleopatra (1963)

In a humorous campus novel by David Lodge a group of academics specialising in English literature debate the most important classic novel that they never read. One wins by confessing he has never read one word by Jane Austen. Last year at the San Sebastian film festival, over a fine dinner attended [...]

January 3, 2023 // 0 Comments

The memorial service for Ken Howard

Last Tuesday I attended the memorial service for Ken Howard which took place at St James Church Piccadilly and afterwards at the Royal  Academy. The church memorial takes an hour into which time you have to fit in prayers and the life of the person, in the case of Ken a full and long one. An [...]

December 8, 2022 // 0 Comments

White Lotus

White Lotus is a bit like peaches and cream, at first delectable but less tasty after a while. It’s probably meant to be watched in a binge stream. My old-fashioned approach is to watch it weekly at 9-00pm on Mondays after Mastermind and University Challenge.   I am now into episode 7 and Tom [...]

November 30, 2022 // 0 Comments

Bournville/Jonathan Coe

Jonathan Coe is emerging as the chronicler of our times. In his latest novel Bournville he traces the origins of Brexit back to VE Day – and subsequent noteworthy events thereafter – as seen through the eyes of the Lamb family who live in the Bournville suburb of Birmingham an utopian [...]

November 16, 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

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

The Kreuzer Sonata (2008)

This film, an erotic, psychological thriller directed by Bernard Rose, was released in 2008 but I watched it for the first time last night. It is based on the banned novel of Leo Tolstoy and in brief is about a man consumed with jealousy that his beautiful classical pianist wife is unfaithful. The [...]

October 25, 2022 // 0 Comments

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