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The Heath /Hunter Davies

The Heath is a vade mecum by writer and journalist Hunter Davies of a year in the life of Hampstead Heath (2019-2020). The author, born in Cumbria, has lived most of his life in Hampstead and is therefore well-qualified to give this well written, enthusiastic and informative account. He covers the [...]

April 19, 2023 // 0 Comments

A la Colthard/Boccaccio and la Colombe d’Or

The past few days I have visited two of my favourite restaurants: Boccacio in the centre of Nice (rue Masséna) and la Colombe d’or in St. Paul de Vence, a 30 minute drive outside Nice. I walked straight past Boccacio because – as I remembered it – it never had an open air street [...]

April 14, 2023 // 0 Comments

A Night at the Opera/ Falstaff

Last night I went to see Guisepe Verdi’s final opera Falstaff at the Nice Opera House. He composed it aged 80 with the librettist Arrigo Borti. It’s based upon The Merry Wives of Windsor and the story can be simplified to the efforts of the debauched soldier Sir John Falstaff to seduce two [...]

April 7, 2023 // 0 Comments

Nice

Yes it’s good to be back in Nice. I was fortunate as my parents liked to travel and take me with them. They first came to the Côte d’Azur in the 1950s and apparently I nearly blinded my mother when I poked her in the eye. Fortunately they French had cortisone. We came back in the 60s. At that [...]

April 7, 2023 // 0 Comments

A Bridge Too Far

I nicknamed this Richard Attenborough film An Hour Too Long as length is one of its problems. The other is the assemblage of stars – Michael Caine, Sean Connery, Lawrence Olivier, Anthony Hopkins, Liv Ullmann, Robert Redford, James Caan, Elliot Gould, Maximilian Schell, Hardy Kruger, Edward [...]

April 2, 2023 // 0 Comments

Manderley Forever/Tatiana de Rosnay

My immediate reaction upon reading Tatiana de Rosnay’s biography of Daphne du Maurier is do we need another one? Margaret Forster has written the definitive biography. Justine Picardie’s Daphne covers a critical period in her life when the latter was under time pressure to produce a biography [...]

March 29, 2023 // 0 Comments

Saracens 34 Harlequins 26

Yesterday I made the somewhat arduous journey to the Tottenham Stadium with 55,000 other spectators to see the match billed as a showdown between the two great London teams from North and West London. It hurts me to say it but Sarries were worthy winners in an entertaining contest in which Quins [...]

March 26, 2023 // 0 Comments

Jerusalem/Simon Sebag Montefiore

The biblical rights to Palestine so interested me that – after  reading Israel – a concise history – I listened to an audio book version of Simon Sebag Montefiore’s history of Jerusalem. Jerusalem lies at the heart of the conflict between Israel and the Arabs countries. It [...]

March 24, 2023 // 0 Comments

The travails of the sport of Rugby Union

Regular readers will be fully aware of the Rust’s somewhat idiosyncratic approach to editorial matters which is why today I make no apology for returning to the subject of the current state of the sport of rugby union generally – and specifically some of the “take aways” from the [...]

March 23, 2023 // 0 Comments

Grace and The Gold

One detective series ended and another began last Sunday with ostensibly little in common. Both reflected how police investigations have changed, illustrating the ways the police go about their business. In Grace the detective invented by crime writer Peter James has to investigate assaults on lone [...]

March 21, 2023 // 0 Comments

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