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A la Colthard/Noble Rot

I have only heard good things of Noble Rot. It was once the site of The Gay Hussar in Greek Street where the hand of many a Labour MP, well-fuelled on Bulls Blood, wandered to my thigh!!! The cuisine was Hungarian and it was a well-known restaurant in the Soho scene particularly favoured by the [...]

November 9, 2021 // 0 Comments

Some things never change

Regular visitors to the pages of this organ will be all too familiar with some of our “running” campaigns and/or attitudes to occasional aspects of developing modern life in the 21st Century that – despite becoming part of the fabric of human society – do not seem to our contributors to [...]

November 9, 2021 // 0 Comments

Age and perception

I sometimes feel sorry for the Beatles. So great was their musical excellence, so all-pervading their impact upon 20th Century culture around the world, that (perhaps alongside Elvis Presley, whom of course did not write his own songs) they occupy such an exalted position in the public [...]

November 7, 2021 // 0 Comments

Police Paris 1900

Most reviewers will do their work after the first episode and might comment whether they will stay with it. This review comes after the concluding episode last Saturday. This French series about a decapitation of a woman set in post-Dreyfus Paris appears to be sufficiently successful that a second [...]

November 6, 2021 // 0 Comments

And now … the end is near …

Trawling around the British newspaper websites in the wee hours – as is my wont – just occasionally one comes across examples of reports, opinion pieces or even journalistic excellence that impress – or indeed, alternatively, cover ground or express opinions with which you may not [...]

November 6, 2021 // 0 Comments

The Magician/Colm Toibin

One of the interesting aspects of biography is the attitude – often better described as the relationship – between the writer and his/her subject. Gitta Sereny wrote an excellent biography of Albert von Speer but seemed to be in thrall of him. Tristram Hunt wrote a detailed account of [...]

October 29, 2021 // 0 Comments

Ridley Road, Paris 1900, Paul Verhoeven revisited & The Directors

Ridley Road  finished last Sunday and by and large I was impressed. Without in any way denigrating the Black cause that has suffered such discrimination in my lifetime it’s good that in the anti-racism platform the BBC gives expression to anti-semitism too. Ridley Road was set in 1962 when [...]

October 27, 2021 // 0 Comments

Poor Solskjaer

Whisper it softly but I feel sorry for the under-pressure Manchester United boss. I’m no particular fan of the Reds – and indeed rather enjoy seeing a club big on triumphalism in the past – now in crisis. So why this sudden shift of sympathy? Firstly, it’s one of the least edifying [...]

October 26, 2021 // 0 Comments

My art week

No exhibitions nor art on telly this week but two fascinating lessons in our art course. In the first – on British art and visual culture 1950 to the present – we studied David Hockney and Francis Bacon. Hockney, though it was not compulsory, studied line at Bradford Art College and [...]

October 23, 2021 // 0 Comments

The face of things to come

Call me an old-fashioned, out of touch, curmudgeon if you will – as a Ruster, I guess it comes with the territory – but sometimes the antics of politicians the world over drive me to distraction. Three articles featuring on the website of the Daily Mail overnight struck me as highlighting [...]

October 20, 2021 // 0 Comments

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