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The way it’s going even as you sleep …

These days – some three years into the life of this great organ of the internet – it is sometimes worthwhile reminding ourselves of the speed at which the world is moving ever onwards into an uncertain future as we oldies fight our continuing and losing battle to keep up. [When I paused for a [...]

August 25, 2018 // 0 Comments

Aiming off …

Earlier this week I went to a showing of the new ‘feature’ documentary Spitfire, made by Altitude Films, produced by Mark Stuart and directed by David Fairhead and Ant Palmer, in a small art-house style cinema screening at Chichester in West Sussex. As a small boy in the 1950s and beyond I [...]

August 24, 2018 // 0 Comments

A storm in a cooking pot

Though to be honest I haven’t given this much thought, I never imagined that one day I’d be feeling sympathy for Jamie Oliver who – as with many so-called TV chefs – for me has a pronounced simultaneous ability to irritate and inform (if that’s you how you regard it). For those who [...]

August 21, 2018 // 0 Comments

A few good actors …

Today I’m referring Rusters to two items related to the world of cinema that I spotted in the media overnight. JOAN CRAWFORD (1904-1977) Firstly, a straightforward link to an article worthy of being read by as wide a readership as possible, written by Clarisse Loughrey on the subject of the [...]

August 18, 2018 // 0 Comments

Aretha Franklin (1942-2018) R.I.P.

What a singer, what an interpreter of other people’s songs! Since the news of her death hit the media yesterday I’ve been wallowing in the tributes coming in from all sides, listening to and/or watching some of her performances on YouTube and listening to the contributions of people who [...]

August 17, 2018 // 0 Comments

Towards an uncertain future

For those of us either declining into old age in a state of semi-delirium – glad if not relieved and relaxed that the endless march of technology is gradually leaving us behind – or perhaps concerned that all notions of human society order, beliefs and norms are being summarily [...]

August 7, 2018 // 0 Comments

Nostalgia ain’t what it used to be

The art of making people laugh is a funny – that’s to say odd – thing. Sometimes comedy gold travels well down the generations and sometimes – often to some surprise among those who were fans ‘first time around’ – it just doesn’t. Sometimes when we look back at the great [...]

August 1, 2018 // 0 Comments

The means may change but History always repeats itself

Overnight the lead stories on both the website of The Guardian newspaper and Radio Five Live have been similar, detailing advance ‘leaks’ of the finding of a Commons parliamentary Department of Digital, Culture, Media and Sport committee about the clear and present danger that the recent global [...]

July 28, 2018 // 0 Comments

It’s all somebody’s Fake News, if you think about it

I suspect like many others I’ve lived the bulk of my life in a warm bubble of perception in which – broadly speaking, despite growing evidence to the contrary as from the late 19th Century onwards as Britain slid from a Grade A imperial power into something a little more mundane – at least [...]

July 26, 2018 // 0 Comments

It’s all up in the air and staying there

My sermon today covers ground far beyond that of my normal brief and in one sense that probably justifies today’s topic (and with bells on) anyway. At some point last year in one of my Rust columns I announced that, post the election and inauguration of US President Donald Trump, I was [...]

July 17, 2018 // 0 Comments

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