A love letter to 20 years of watching Gladiator. – For The Critic
Filed in column, Journalism
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Also tagged Academy Awards, Alain de Botton, army, Classics, Cleopatra, Commodus, Derek Jacobi, Djimon Hounsou, drink, Edward Gibbon, Facebook, film, Hans Zimmer, Harry Sidebottom, history, Holst, Jesus, Julius Caesar, Kent, Loeb Classical Library, love, Marcus Aurelius, Moravia, Morocco, music, Nick Cave, Odeon, Oxford, painting, religion, Rich Hardcastle, Ridley Scott, Rome, Royal Albert Hall, Russell Crowe, Slovakia, South Africa, Spain, Suffolk, Surrey, tattoos, The Critic, Thirty Odd Foot of Grunts, war, YouTube
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Wednesday, September 12, 2018
Itchin’ for a Twitch Inn, at the Heritage weekend. – For The Oldie
Filed in correspondence, Journalism
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Also tagged Battle of Britain, Douces Manor, Dunkirk, fine dining, graffiti, Guy Gibson, Heritage Open Days, Idi Amin, John Cunningham, Kent, Maidstone, North Downs, Peter Townsend, pubs, RAF, Tesco, The Beatles, The Dambusters, The Malling Society, The Oldie, Twitch Inn, West Malling, WW1, WW2
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A footsoldier’s review of Antony Beevor’s Arnhem: the Battle for the Bridges, 1944. – For The Oldie
Filed in Journalism, review
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Also tagged 1st Airborne Division, Allied Expeditionary Force, Antony Beevor, army, Arnhem, books, Britishness, engineering, Field Marshal Montgomery, Flanders, General Bradley, General Eisenhower, General Patton, history, Holland, Nijmegen, non-fiction, Operation Market Garden, paratroopers, Prince Bernhard of Lippe-Biesterfeld, the Dutch, The Oldie, the Schutzstaffel, the Wehrmacht, WW2
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Wednesday, April 18, 2018
This weekend I will be joining a local choral society for their performance of Haydn’s The Creation – and what better way to welcome Spring now that it’s finally arrived. An avowed and much-loved masterpiece from its earliest performances – Vienna, 1798 – ‘whose appeal [I read from A Peter Brown's DECCA sleeve-notes] was irresistible [...]
Filed in correspondence, Journalism
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Also tagged A Peter Brown, Aled Jones, army, bassoons, Beethoven, Chapel Royal, choral societies, Christianity, cosmology, cricket, DECCA, German, Hampton Court, Handel, Haydn, Italians, Kent, King James, Maidstone, Milton, music, Napoleon, oratorio, Oxford University, Poetry, religion, school, sheep, singing, Spring, the Bible, the Church of England, the French, The Oldie, the Oxford Spezzati, tigers, Vienna, war, West Kensington, whales, worms
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Tuesday, December 19, 2017
Dunkirk – THE UNTOLD STORY!! – For The Oldie
Filed in correspondence, Journalism
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Also tagged 11th Armoured Division, 51st Highland Division, 97th (Kent Yeomanry) Field Regiment, army, British Expeditionary Force, Canterbury, champagne, Channel Islands, cricket, Croix de Guerre, D-Day, Dunkirk, Elsie Adeline Cockersell, film, France, incarceration, James Kingford Carson, Kent, livery companies, love, moustaches, Nazis, Normandy, Royal Artillery, Royal Electrical and Mechanical Engineers, sea-faring, St Valery-en-Caux, The Oldie, war, women, Yorkshire
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Tuesday, December 12, 2017
A festive gripe about Cornelius’s lovely ‘Three Kings‘ – and the solo I have never got to sing in it. – For The Oldie
Filed in correspondence, Journalism
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Also tagged Alexandra Coghlan, All Saints Maidstone, baritones, barristers, Bayreuth, BBC Books, carols, cellos, Christmas, Christmas Badger Singers, English, Franz Liszt, Gerald Finley, German, girlfriends, Hampton Court, HN Bate, Ivor Atkins, King's College London, Knightsbridge, men, music, Oxford University, Peter Cornelius, Radio 3, silk, singing, Smarden, Southwark Cathedral, Sri Lanka, The Judd School, The Oldie, translation, University of St Andrews, YouTube
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. There are always 1,200,000 people afloat on the seas of the world. — The Nelson Evening Mail, January 22 1907 . It is a German conceit, that the vertebrae are absolutely undeveloped skulls. Vladivostock is 1000km east of Beijing. The Publications Manual of the American Psychological Association allows for two spaces after a full stop [...]
Filed in Journalism, NEWS AT A GLANCE
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Also tagged anatomy, children, China, crime, dogs, education, government, health, Iceland, irony, jeans, Journalism, law, music, Nazism, Nelson Evening Mail, nomenclature, photography, psychology, Russia, sea-faring, Sri Lanka, Treblinka, trousers, writing
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Monday, February 13, 2017
. The honorary freedom of the borough of Rye in Sussex confers upon the freemen the privilege of kissing the mayoress. — The Nelson Evening Mail, March 21 1907 . When you register your child at birth, it immediately becomes the legal property of the state. In WW2 German physicists were able to discern the [...]
Filed in Journalism, NEWS AT A GLANCE
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Also tagged Anthony McGowan, Bowling Green, Brian Moore, butterflies, campanology, children, death, drink, English, girlfriends, golf, Inverness, kangaroos, manicures, musicals, Nelson Evening Mail, OED, officialdom, physics, radio, Samuel Beckett, sex, Sir Nicholas Gimcrack, snakes, Sussex, Thailand, the Dutch, work, WW2
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Saturday, February 4, 2012
In which James Bond, Beyoncé Knowles, WG Sebald, Daniel Craig, Grant Gee, Alain de Botton, Eddie Redmayne and that girl with the dragon tattoo are discussed. – For theartsdesk
Filed in column, Journalism
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Also tagged Alain de Botton, Beyoncé, Daniel Craig, Eddie Redmayne, film, Grant Gee, James Bond, literature, music, Sebastian Faulks, Sweden, theartsdesk, TV, war, WG Sebald
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… and it was here, while re-reading an article by the American critic James Wood on the oneiric nature of the writings of ‘Max’ Sebald, that I found myself impressed more and more by the feeling that it was in fact Wood himself who had at least once previously caused me to look up the [...]