When I was in London last week, I went to lunch in the National Gallery’s very civilized restaurant in the Sainsbury’s Wing with its views over Trafalgar Square and the cool, calm ambience that may stem from the fact that…
Yes! Result! The British government has U-turned on its daft decision to sell off our ancient English woodlands, our heritage, to private enterprise. This wasn’t in their manifesto at the election, no body wanted it and, in all honesty, it…
So Betty Garrett died at the weekend aged 91. She was the taxi driving girl, Brunhilde Esterhazy, Frank Sinatra’s relentless girlfriend in one of the best screen musicals that ever came out of Hollywood – On the Town with its…
Joan Sutherland 1926-2010 As you can see above, yesterday I was in London for the Service of thanksgiving For the life and work of Joan Sutherland – one of opera’s greatest voices and, I have to admit it, one of…
I think I must have a destructive streak because I always love this time of year in my small town garden in Lewes in Southern England. It is when I get out the secateurs and cut down all my clematis plants to…
TRUE GRIT (15) **** Starring Jeff Bridges, Matt Damon, Josh Brolin, Hailee Steinfeld Directors: Ethan and Joel Coen R.T. 110 min. A 14 year old girl, Mattie Ross (Hailee Steinfeld) hires an old, drunken but tough U.S. Marshall, Rooster Cogburn…
I am hoping that it is good news about the fall of President Mubarak of Egypt but only time will tell us what the brave Egyptian protestors have won for themselves by forcing him out of office. Whatever comes next,…
If I hadn’t been invited by my friend and relative, Henry Bell, I might have skipped the new play at the Orange Tree Theatre in Richmond. Reading Hebron by the Canadian writer Jason Sherman is a dramatic, semi-documentary play about…
So I am beginning to get the measure of modern Britain. Is it too late to make some changes in high places? If not then let’s get ready for library closures, the loss of our woodlands, the demise of public…
Yes, I know, it was just a set of over-indulged, baby-boomers turned whining yuppies who didn’t know that they had it made. It has been much ridiculed and much loved and I, for one, never forget about that bunch of friends having…