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Smith or Smith

I followed the Radio London commentary of the Harlequins 24 Glasgow Warriors 7 match, being unwilling to lay out £25 monthly for broadcaster Premium Sports. So I cannot give a total report but – with the Six Nations looming – I thought I might offer my ha’porth on Fin Smith [...]

January 20, 2025 // 0 Comments

El Cid/The book and the film

I was recently given a new biography of El Cid, the Spanish 11th Century knight, by Nora Berend, a Cambridge University historian. Her thesis is that Rodrigo de Viva – far rom being a patriot – was a mercenary. She concedes that many of the primary sources are unreliable. However this [...]

January 12, 2025 // 0 Comments

The Tanner Report: Fulham 4 Watford 1

Reporting on this victory is secondary to commenting on the decline of the FA Cup in my lifetime. The year of my birth (1954) witnessed what many consider the greatest game ever played at Craven Cottage – a cup tie with  the holders Newcastle United which the latter won 5-4. The linesman who [...]

January 10, 2025 // 0 Comments

Surprising actors in a 1980 TV series

On Monday I watched Bergerac, now shown at 3.00pm on the UK Drama channel. It featured – as Belle Young, an eccentric boatowner and smuggler – the 1970s actress Judy Cornwall. Yesterday’s episode about a computer convention in Jersey also featured a computer nerd and mogul Jordan [...]

January 8, 2025 // 0 Comments

My Sporting Weekend

The Border-Gavaskar trophy between Australia and India has done much to enhance and elevate the status of Test cricket. India won the First Test in Perth – Australia levelled the series in Adelaide – and the Third Test in Brisbane was a washout draw. Australia won the Fourth Test in [...]

January 5, 2025 // 0 Comments

Top Hat (1935)

Time was when Christmas television would show a ‘big film’ but now these are to be found on Amazon Prime or Netflix and the main channels have to recycle tired old war films or superannuated blockbusters. It was therefore a huge relief that BBC broadcast – at the unlikely time of 8.15 am [...]

January 4, 2025 // 0 Comments

An Officer And A Spy/Robert Harris

This book came heavily recommended by the podcast The Rest is History as a novel about the Dreyfus affaire that you could read in one sitting. In fact it took me a week, largely because the detail of the various trials were so copious. The scandal is seen – not through the eyes of Alfred [...]

January 4, 2025 // 0 Comments

Australia beat India in Melbourne Test

The Melbourne Test Match, played before a record crowd, proved to be an eventful and absorbing match as well as instructive as England will play both India and Australia in 2025. Australia won comfortably in a ding-dong battle after India collapsed after tea 0n the final day. India can add Reddy, [...]

December 31, 2024 // 0 Comments

Operation Daybreak

Fred Trueman one made the cutting comment: there haven been many great bowlers from the Kitkstall Lane Emd but Neil Mallender is not one of them” the same  or similar comment might be made of director Lewis Gilbert. He directed many niteable films like Alfie, Shirley Valentine , Educating Rita  [...]

December 30, 2024 // 0 Comments

The Tanner Report: Chelsea 1 Fulham 2

In 1963 – on Boxing Day – Fulham beat Ipswich, who were the champions the previous year, by 10-1. 63 goals were scored in the old First Division that day, one other result being West Ham 2 Blackburn 8. Fast-forward to 1979 when Fulham last beat Chelsea at Stamford Bridge (2-1). I was at [...]

December 27, 2024 // 0 Comments

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