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Boxing in the dock (again)

The debacle of the recent non-fight between Chris Eubank Jnr and Conor Benn – actually a bout cancelled by the British Board of Boxing Control as “against the interests of the sport”, apparently  despite the protests (up to and including threatened legal action) of promoters [...]

October 15, 2022 // 0 Comments

Rise of the Nazis/The Downfall

I watched my recording of the first part of this series yesterday. It’s a documentary in the modern mould: actors silently depicting the major personages; a young female historian from a diverse background. Heavyweight historian Sir Richard Evans presents it. It begins in 1944 with Adolf Hitler [...]

October 12, 2022 // 0 Comments

Grand Prix/1966

Sport and cinema do not mix. Quite simply a sport star is not an actor – nor an actor a sportsman or woman. There are exceptions – like Robert de Niro in Raging Bull and Richard Harris in This Sporting Life – but John Huston’s regrettable Escape to Victory with a pot-bellied [...]

October 6, 2022 // 0 Comments

The funeral of Ken Howard

Yesterday I travelled up to London for the funeral of the painter Ken Howard. The service was at St Mary’s Church,The Boltons, and the burial in the cemetery between Brompton and Fulham Road. Organised religion occupies the key points in life: birth (the christening service), manhood confirmation [...]

October 4, 2022 // 0 Comments

Robin Marlar

I was sad to hear of the passing of Robin Marlar whom I met just 2 weeks ago at Ted Dexter’s memorial. Most people cannot manage one successful career but Robin succeeded in three: distinguished cricketer for Sussex; Times cricket correspondent; recruitment consultant. In all three he was a [...]

October 3, 2022 // 0 Comments

The legend that is Marilyn Monroe

I do not like the word iconic but I cannot think of a better one to describe Marilyn Monroe. She was recently the subject of a podcast on Rest is History by historians Tom Holland and Dominic Sandbrook. Better was the Discovering series in Sky Arts profiling her. In  her time – the [...]

October 1, 2022 // 0 Comments

Come to think of it, you probably COULD make it up …

One of the catch phrases of the late and great English comic Frankie Howerd (1917-1992) – usually deployed after he’d taken his audience/viewers into his confidence and made some withering, disparaging, remark about some hapless individual that had prompted gales of laughter – was to [...]

October 1, 2022 // 0 Comments

What’s going on?

Two questions that I’ve been asked, as a person with above average financial knowledge and experience, are:- “What’s going on?“ “What should I do?“ The Government does not have the answer to either – and nor do I. Liz Truss’s very public difference with Rishi [...]

September 30, 2022 // 0 Comments

Sensationalists: The Bad Girls And Boys Of British Art/BBC 2

The Sensationalists, broadcast last night on BBC2, is the story of the YBAs (young British artists) – a movement originating in Goldsmith’s College of Art – whose prime mover was Damien Hirst. They fulminated against the traditional values of the art world, epitomised by Cork Street [...]

September 28, 2022 // 0 Comments

Calling the shots/David Dein

David Dein is one of the most successful figures in football in the last 50 years and here he tells his story and his recipe for achievement. He acquired and subsequently lost a fortune in the sugar trade, went onto the Arsenal board where he formed – with Arsene Wenger – one of the [...]

September 27, 2022 // 0 Comments

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