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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

T20 World Cup semi finals

I wish I could enjoy T20 cricket – I really do. I watched both semifinals. I am deeply unsatisfied. Firstly, the technique is so awful as you constantly see slashing across the line. The only elegant stroke I can recall was a sumptuous six from Virat Kohli. Kohli had his feet in place, [...]

November 11, 2022 // 0 Comments

England 29 Argentina 30

It is a fact of elite sporting life that in the final analysis of historical perspective everyone involved – from the back-room staff, kit-men, physiotherapists trainers, managers and coaches right through to the players, athletes and participants are judged by their statistics and results – [...]

November 7, 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

Petworth Literary Festival/Simon Sebag Montefiore

Yesterday I attended the Petworth Literary Festival where Simon Sebag Montefiore was interviewed by Davide Soskin about his new book The World.    This is a history of the world through families. His thesis is that the treatment of history is too narrow – whether of a country or a [...]

October 31, 2022 // 0 Comments

In Our Time/Wilfred Owen

One of my favourite wireless programmes is In Our Time presented by Melvyn Bragg at 9-00 on Radio 4 every Thursday. The topic varies weekly and Bragg assembles a team of academics well-qualified to discuss it. Yesterday’s programme featured the World War poet Wilfred Owen. My connection with [...]

October 30, 2022 // 0 Comments

Getting it right beats how we’d like it to be

As a columnist on the Rust I am sometimes reminded of a conversation that I had eons ago with an elderly relative on the rather broad subject of which pastimes or subjects individuals take up as hobbies, interests and/or life-long obsessions and the reasons why they do. In these days of increased [...]

October 29, 2022 // 0 Comments

Sacked!

We are now well into the football sacking season with Thomas Tuchel, Bruno Lage and Stevie Gerrard early casualties. Leeds’ Jesse Marsch’s head is in the noose. In an article in yesterday’s Times their chief football writer Henry Winter identified the increasing role fans play in such [...]

October 26, 2022 // 1 Comment

Manchester City 3 Brighton 1

Brighton have lost their last six visits to Manchester City so not even John Pargiter would have backed them yesterday. As it happened Roberto de Zerbi set up the team well with asphyxiating man to man marking. Inevitably Erling Haarland scored two first half goals making his tally this term so far [...]

October 23, 2022 // 0 Comments

Noises Off/Theatre Royal Brighton

The amazing thing about Michael Frayn’s pastiche of the British bedroom farce – Noises Off – is that it was first staged 40 years ago. Even though the genre of such Whitehall farces hardly exists (remember the long running No Sex Please We’re British) this one is still regularly [...]

October 20, 2022 // 0 Comments

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