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Tristan and Isolde/Glyndebourne

Yesterday I returned to Glyndebourne for the second time in a week for their production of Richard Wagner’s Tristan and Isolde.  They are arguably the most famous lovers in opera, that is, if we regard Romeo and Juliet as less the opera of Gounod and more the theatre of William Shakespeare. So [...]

August 3, 2024 // 0 Comments

Art appropriation

Looting of artworks existed long before the current cultural appropriation movement. Napoleon was probably the biggest looter in history. Still under 30 when he conquered Italy, he never actually occupied Venice but one of  of his art commissars drew up an inventory of art works to hand  over [...]

August 1, 2024 // 0 Comments

Who Only Cricket Knows/David Woodhouse

This is a book prize-winning account of the 1953-1954 tour to the Caribbean led by Len Hutton and managed by Charles Palmer. The title is an adaptation from Rudyard Kipling by the Marxist writer C.R James which reflected one of the tensions of the tour – nascent Caribbean nationalism – [...]

July 31, 2024 // 0 Comments

Sharks narrowly beaten by Warwickshire in One Day Competition

Yesterday I was invited into the Sussex boardroom for a one day game against Warwickshire. Top of the second division of the Championship and in the quarter finals of the T20, our resources are stretched by another competition and it showed. After a platform of 54-0, our batting collapsed. This [...]

July 29, 2024 // 0 Comments

Saturday sports watch

I decided that today my post would centre more on sports coverage than the sports themselves. TMS with ball-by-ball commentary on the third day at Edgbaston was on my radio all day. It threw up such statistical gems as that a Warwickshire player had never scored a century at their own ground [...]

July 28, 2024 // 0 Comments

The Merry Widow/Glyndebourne

Franz Léhar’s operetta, written in 1905, is actually a musical and really marked the end of one genre  (the operetta) and beginning of another (the musical). The story is simple. Hanna Glawari (Danielle de Niese) is the rich widow from Pontevedro, in Paris for a party at the Pontevedro [...]

July 27, 2024 // 0 Comments

The Crusades/PBS

I was taught history to a high level at my school, so much so that a fellow pupil who later achieved a first at Oxford said he was able to rely upon his school tuition in the first year of university. However, in the teaching of the Crusades, I do not believe we had an accurate assessment. The [...]

July 26, 2024 // 0 Comments

The Paris Olympics

Suddenly the Olympics are here. With the Rugby World Cup and the Euros we have not been deprived top notch international sporting competition this year. However, the array of summer sports in Britain have been spoiled by the appalling weather. Paris and France are appropriate stages. Baron de [...]

July 25, 2024 // 0 Comments

County cricket‘s state of play

Though it would perhaps be going too far to say that county cricket is in crisis it certainly feels unloved and marginalised. I am particularly concerned for the county I support Middlesex. Between 1919 and 1947 Middlesex were the only county  of the south to win the Championship. Lancashire and [...]

July 24, 2024 // 0 Comments

Schauffele’s Open

Xander Schauffele won his second Major of the year, seeing off the challenge of Trystan Lawrence and Justin Rose. Yorkshireman Dan Brown, who up to the tournament some might have thought wrote The Da Vinci Code, faded away as did West Ham supporter Billy Horshel who had led on the third day. He [...]

July 23, 2024 // 0 Comments

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