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Operation Pedestal/Max Hastings

Pursuing my interest in the lesser known theatres of war in World War Two I read Max Hastings’ account of the fleet that battled to Malta in 1942 with great interest and enjoyment as it’s well researched and most readable. After significant defeats at Singapore and Tobruk in 1942, [...]

June 1, 2021 // 0 Comments

Bringing “stuff” to you …

From its inception this organ has always ranked alongside Facebook, WhatsApp, Tik-Tok, Twitter and Instagram in terms of its impact upon the lives of the estimated 7.7 billion members of the human race that currently inhabit the Earth. It has managed this in part by organising its now legendary [...]

May 28, 2021 // 0 Comments

Vacation or staycation?

It’s been a most confusing time for the traveller and therefore the industry. You simply do not know whether foreign travelling is feasible. Before the Indian variant came along it seemed that on or after June 21st all restrictions would be lifted. Of course you can go to a green light country [...]

May 21, 2021 // 0 Comments

Confusion grows as time goes by

In terms of the fundamental conflict between what has made the human race tick since pre-history (not least naked common sense) on the one hand – and the fashionable crackpot ‘woke’ concerns increasingly being taken up by campaigning members of what is known as ‘Generation Z’ [...]

May 16, 2021 // 0 Comments

Great Lives/Harry Hopkins

Radio 4’s Great Lives can can be very variable. As often as not the subject is some female trail-blazer of whom I have never heard. Yesterday Matthew Parris presented an episode on Harry Hopkins advocated by Jonathan Dimbleby a respected historian of World War Two. Harry Hopkins was the [...]

May 5, 2021 // 0 Comments

That eternal question – what’s the BBC coming to?

I begin my contribution to this organ today by admitting that it is fashionable these days to criticise the BBC. In fact – arguably – it has always been thus, to the point where some veteran Beeb insiders peddle the line that, if on any remotely controversial topic they’re taking [...]

May 2, 2021 // 0 Comments

Then And Now

A few weeks ago a fellow Rust columnist name-checked a British television channel called Talking Pictures TV, founded in 2015, which broadcasts free-to-air vintage films and television programmes and – as I understand it – can be seen via Freeview, Sky and Virgin Media (though I may be [...]

April 30, 2021 // 0 Comments

What’s it all about?

My subject for today – illustrated by two examples – is the vexed one of how the human race copes with life on a planet with finite resources on the one hand and apparently infinite complications upon the other. I grant you that’s a hell of an opening statement but there’s no particular [...]

April 17, 2021 // 0 Comments

Queen Elizabeth and the Spy in the Household/Channel 4

This was a typical Channel 4 documentary- long on revelation, short on evidence for it. The programme made two significant such revelations, namely that the Queen was complicit in the cover up of Anthony Blunt and his immunity from prosecution and, secondly, the spy delivered a hot dossier on the [...]

April 6, 2021 // 0 Comments

Normandy 2021

It is said that “In the land of the blind, the one-eyed man is king” – and it was certainly true when, as a young teacher on my first assignment, devoid of geography knowledge, I was given a textbook by my headmaster and told that – as long as I stayed one chapter ahead of the pack – [...]

April 4, 2021 // 0 Comments

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