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Breakfast at Tiffany’s/ Theatre Royal

To dramatise on stage a much loved enduring film is an ambitious task and in this case a failed one. My theatre companion a schoolteacher but capable theatre director put his finger on it with his words after curtain call “There is big hole in the centre”.  The leading role was played [...]

October 28, 2016 // 0 Comments

Madama Butterfly/Glyndebourne on tour

There are two types of annual production at Glyndebourne: the main festival where you have all the trimmings of black tie formality, picnics in the gardens and tickets that go up to £250 or the tour with younger talent, less formality and tickets about 25% of the festival. Not that the tour is a [...]

October 27, 2016 // 0 Comments

Paris Spring/James Naughtie

Jim Naughtie is a versatile man. He has been a leading radio broadcaster for many years presenting the flagship Today programme, written a work on opera and hosted the BBC book club. At such an event I met him and  found him to be affable and engaging. As a keen reader of the espionage genre I [...]

October 26, 2016 // 0 Comments

The Final Day

Needless to say it was still raining. This had affected the trip as at no stage could we comfortably stroll around the city, enjoy the Retiro Park or outdoor cafe and restaurant life. Nonetheless we could enjoy the indoor activities of the art museums and in Alan and Ivan’s case football at [...]

October 25, 2016 // 0 Comments

At The Bernabeu

Alan Tanner and I can now reveal our reasons for being here: we have tickets to see Real Madrid. We thought Real Madrid v Athletic must mean Atletico Madrid but in fact it was another Athletic, Bilbao. The Athletic in Bilbao reflects its English origins. A Bilbao student was sent to London after [...]

October 24, 2016 // 0 Comments

A la Colthard/Merci and Botin

We started a rainy day by walking to the Prado. Alice Mansfield had marked our card by advising us to cherry pick the most famous works: las meninas by Velazquez, The Dog by Goya and Trinity by El Greco and the collections of Rubens and Hieronymus Bosch. Even with tickets acquired from the hotel [...]

October 23, 2016 // 0 Comments

Hola from Madrid

The National Rust party convened at Gatwick for the long weekend trip I organised to Madrid: Bob Tickler, Daffers, Alan Tanner and Ivan Conway. Bob in particular does not have an intuitive feel for modern day travel. He dislikes having to print out tickets, does not want them on his mobile and [...]

October 22, 2016 // 0 Comments

A Celebration Dinner

Last night I attended a dinner to celebrate the 20th anniversary of the 1996 Fulham promotion side. This was a  pivotal season and achievement. Fulham were in the fourth tier, the weakest side in London and insecure at our home at Craven Cottage. The previous season Fulham looked at one stage to [...]

October 21, 2016 // 0 Comments

A visit to the barber

Yesterday I made my monthly visit to the hairdresser. I have been using the same guy for nearly two years. I would not describe him as a friend but we get on well and I am surprised by the level and amount of his confidences. It would be wrong to go into too much detail but as a student of [...]

October 20, 2016 // 0 Comments

Brighton 1 Wolves 0

The Seagulls made heavy weather of defeating Wolves and the last 5 minutes were stressful as Wolves camped in our penalty area. Sam Baldock made light of my criticism that he is all hard running but no lethal striker with a powerful headed goal at the near post that ultimately separated the teams. [...]

October 19, 2016 // 0 Comments

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