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Upon entering Christmas week …

Since the beginning on the month, I suspect in common with the bulk of the British public, my family has spent much of its time keeping our originally intended plans for celebrating Christmas under review while also monitoring the latest daily developments in the Omicron variant crisis in case the [...]

December 21, 2021 // 0 Comments

Steven Spielberg at 75

In the week I watched Mark Kermode interview Steven Spielberg, whose birthday falls today. It’s in the nature of such things that, if you interview arguably the most celebrated film director of our lifetime, you do not ask too many aggressive questions. Although Spielberg was not given a rough [...]

December 18, 2021 // 0 Comments

When the only consistent thing is the lack of it

Last night I had an early dinner for the first time at a highly-recommended pub in West Sussex, which shall remain nameless partly because it is irrelevant for present purposes and partly because I enjoyed the atmosphere and my meal sufficiently that I fully intend to return there again and [...]

December 17, 2021 // 0 Comments

Pushing the envelope

Many years ago – I reckon in the mid 1970s – Wales were leading the All Blacks when New Zealand lock Andy Haden was seemingly fouled in a line out. Wales were penalised and the All Blacks took a crucial late lead. Later Haden confessed that this was a rehearsed ploy. I tell the story as [...]

December 15, 2021 // 0 Comments

West Side Story (2021)

Not many directors would risk remaking such a celebrated musical on stage and screen as West Side Story but Steven Spielberg has the chutzpah so to do. Does he pull it off? Yes and no. Yes, he is brilliant film maker and sensibly sticks to  the original. No, because the original score and [...]

December 15, 2021 // 0 Comments

My TV sporting weekend

I’m not the biggest fan of Formula One, regarding it as no more than a sponsored procession and lacking that essential ingredient of sport – ebb and flow. However, the publicity got the better of me and at 1.00 pm for the final Grand Prix at Abu Dhabi  I was tuned into Radio 5 and Channel [...]

December 13, 2021 // 0 Comments

More viewings

My picture fest continued in London with 2 visits to the Royal Academy and a view of the pictures on view at the Richard Green Gallery. I visited the Summer Show at the RA. In trying to reposition themselves for a younger audience, standards have dropped and most of the pictures –  garish in [...]

December 12, 2021 // 0 Comments

Party time at Number 10

One of the more surprising aspects of the current snowstorm of crises surrounding the besieged regime of Boris Johnson is that anyone finds it surprising. From his teenage years onwards, almost everyone who ever came into close contact with the present incumbent of Number 10 had him marked down as [...]

December 12, 2021 // 0 Comments

Modern life (Part 37)

Completely by chance, the other day I found myself ruminating upon which was the exact moment at which I began “falling off the pace” of modern life. This was against a background in which, in casual conversations over past decades, I have long used 1985 at my answer to this question because [...]

December 11, 2021 // 0 Comments

The Courtauld Collection

In the week I saw the refurbished Courtauld Collection which by and large the art critics appreciated. I was underwhelmed. Matters were not helped as the taxi driver who took me there from Marylebone was one of those ‘miserable old gits’ who – when he was not stuck in a traffic jam when [...]

December 10, 2021 // 0 Comments

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