DJANGO UNCHAINED (18) **** Starring: Jamie Foxx, Christoph Waltz, Leonardo DiCaprio, Kerry Washington, Samuel L. Jackson Directed by: Quentin Tarantino Running time: 165 minutes Two years before the American Civil War, a German bounty hunter, Dr King Schultz (Christoph Waltz)…
Les Misérables (12A) ** Starring: Hugh Jackman, Russell Crowe, Anne Hathaway, Amanda Seyfried, Eddie Redmayne, Samantha Barks, Helena Bonham Carter, Sacha Baron Cohen, Directed by Tom Hooper Running time: 158 minutes In Nineteenth Century France, Jean Valjean (Hugh Jackman), cruelly imprisoned…
Today, the anniversary of the liberation of the Nazi concentration camp, Auschwitz, is Holocaust Memorial Day when we are encouraged to remember not only the murder of over six million people, mostly Jews, but that we should dedicate ourselves, even…
I had a great seat in the Royal Festival Hall last Thursday (see Thursday’s blog) for a concert by the Philharmonia Orchestra conducted thrillingly by the Ossetian conductor Tugan Sokhiev. I had booked because they were playing Brahms’ First Symphony and I…
George Osborne sticking to his Plan A No wonder George Osborne is feeling sick these days. All those confident predictions about his master plan for the British economy seem to be going down the pan. This morning’s news that Britain’s…
I’m going to a concert tonight at London’s Royal Festival Hall when the Philharmonia Orchestra will be playing one of my favourite pieces of classical music, Brahms’ First Symphony (1876). It is just one of many of my favourite works…
The British prime minister, David Cameron, made an important speech this morning here in Britain. Important because it commits his party the Conservative Party, to including the promise of an “In/Out” Referendum over British membership of the European Union after…
Richard Blanco 44-year-old, Latino poet Richard Blanco brought President Barrack Obama’s second inauguration ceremony to an encouraging, even inspiring, start yesterday setting the tone for our hopes in Obama’s second term. Richard Blanco is the youngest, the first Hispanic and…
Charles-Camille Saint-Saëns (1835 – 1921) On my long journey through the chronology of classical music, often documented in these blogs, I have just reached the end of the year 1877 with Charles-Camille Saint-Saëns greatest operatic hit, Samson and Delilah which was the last…
It has snowed here in Lewes, UK. My snowdrops feel at home. Neat.