Just in

World Affairs

A Day At The Races

Yesterday I made my annual visit to Plumpton racecourse. I go with a sporting friend who is also involved in retail and yesterday it was his turn to entertain. He also invited a sportsman with whom he grew up locally Ian “Gunner” Gould. The latter had been in a Arsenal youth team (hence his [...]

February 28, 2023 // 0 Comments

Military Wives

On Saturday evening I settled down without much initial anticipation to Military Wives, directed by Peter Carraneo, whose most successful movie to date was The Full Monty. This film is of the same genre: a group of diverse, same sex, people decided to form a choir at an army barracks whilst their [...]

February 27, 2023 // 0 Comments

Six Nations: Italy 20 Ireland 34

The non-UK countries in the Six Nations do not get too much coverage in the media and this year Italy have definitely slipped under the radar. Okay, they have lost all 3 games – but they play with brio and were unlucky to lose against France. Yesterday they more than competed against a very [...]

February 26, 2023 // 0 Comments

Six Nations: Wales 10 England 20

I suspect that when someone begins his tale with a line that – the day before – he had spent the day having a pub lunch and then watching the Six Nations clash between Wales and England on television together with a former England rugby player who made his international debut in Cardiff [...]

February 26, 2023 // 0 Comments

Motty R.I.P.

I cannot say Motty was a good friend but he was more than an acquaintance of mine. I do not know how many paying tribute to him actually knew him. The tributes did get one thing right: he had an encyclopaedic knowledge of football in an age where there was no internet resource. He kept rigorous [...]

February 24, 2023 // 0 Comments

All Quiet on the Western Front

Although All Quiet on the Western Front hoovered up the BAFTA awards I was a tad disappointed. It’s a German film so it was good that foreign films are recognised. The story is of German school friends who, persuaded by the xenophobic rhetoric of their headmaster, became conscripts in the [...]

February 21, 2023 // 0 Comments

Revival of Bill Naughton’s Spring and Port Wine

For personal reasons which I will divulge later I was so delighted to hear that Bill Naughton’s Spring and Port Wine is to be revived at the Octagon Theatre Bolton. Bill Naughton was of poor Irish stock in County Mayo and moved to Bolton where he bagged and delivered coal. His breakthrough as a [...]

February 11, 2023 // 0 Comments

Sideways/Radio 4

Yesterday Matthew Syed presented a programme on the chess player Jonathan Nunn. He was something of a prodigy as a mathematician – he was the youngest person to gain admission to Oxford since Cardinal Wolsey. He switched to chess and, although excellent, he was never world grandmaster class. [...]

February 9, 2023 // 0 Comments

1 … 56 57 58 59 60 … 150

Copyright © 2026 The National Rust | Design by Premonition