Maria Sharapova may be a brilliant tennis player but I cannot watch any of her games. That grunting and shrieking like some demented banshee really puts me off. She is not the only one, but certainly the worst. I can understand the odd grunt when serving and maybe when playing a difficult shot, but every (insert Read More
Well, I know what I shall be watching on television later tonight. I read last year that, as a schoolboy in the Sixties, Andrew Lloyd-Webber spent his pocket money buying up paintings by the then highly unfashionable Pre-Raphaelites. Ever since then, as well as a feeling of jealousy, I had wondered what was in his Read More
Well the BBC’s Shakespeare Unlocked season has started , well for me anyway. I seem to have missed a couple of programmes in April. Yesterday evening I watched: Joely Richardson on Shakespeare’s Women, BBC Four By focusing on the female roles of his earlier plays Twelfth Night and As You Like It, this documentary set out to show Read More
I have just been watching Royal Academy Summer Exhibition: The Culture Show on BBC2. The largest open-submission contemporary art show in the world. I must really try to get down there sometime this summer. One exhibit really stood out, but not in a good way. Self portrait as Rubbish Bin by Michael Landy is just that, a rubbish Read More
This morning I watched Songs of Praise, not a programme I would normally think of seeing, but I was round friends having stayed the night and it was just before the Thames Jubilee Pageant. Listening to “I Vow to Thee My Country” was very moving and reminded me of the days as a young boy Read More
– you can tell me by the way I walk Great to see the sunny weather back again after all this time. I can’t believe it’s been nearly two months since that great start to spring and the intervening near wintry weather we have had in between. I spent lunchtime on a bench in the park basking Read More
Oh well, that’s British weather for you. From the balmy weather we’ve been having that wouldn’t have been out of place in summer to winter again. Have I ever said how much I hate winter? Most probably. If I had the money I would spend the winter somewhere warm maybe coming back for Christmas and Read More
Amazing. The vernal equinox was yesterday marking the official start of spring and the weather has turned warm and the sun is out. From winter woollies to shirt sleeves in just one day. I hope we might actually have decent spring this year. Read More
I have just heard that yesterday Davy Jones died of a heart attack in Florida at the age of 66. Although he had been in Coronation Street and played the Artful Dodger in the musical Oliver in both the West End and Broadway, I remember him best as the British member of the Monkees. The original manufactured Read More
Peter Gabriel has just released (10 October 2011) his ninth studio album New Blood. The album is an orchestral re-interpretation of some of his greatest hits including San Jacinto, The Rhythm of the Heat, In Your Eyes and Red Rain. As much as I like the work of Peter Gabriel I shall not be rushing out to buy it. Read More