Happy New Year to you. May 2024 be a better year for you than 2023 was. During the last two festive seasons my son and I both had Covid in the days after Christmas, as you can read in this piece from 2022 and this one from 2021. We have escaped it this time round.… Continue reading A Covid-Free Start to 2024
An Irish bar in West London. Early evening. We have just heard that Shane McGowan (singer, songwriter, founder of The Pogues) has died. A friend wants to raise a glass to him. My son and I meet him, and one of his neighbours. We have met before, many times, here and in places like this.… Continue reading That Steve McQueen quote from “The Magnificent Seven”
Earlier this year I wrote a piece about the Oscar winners that I have seen on the London stage. I counted up a dozen, 11 I had seen in London and one more (Jeremy Irons) in Stratford-on-Avon. Since writing those words I have found another theatre programme: “Antigone” at the Barbican, a production I saw… Continue reading A 12th Oscar Winner on the London stage
I return to the subject of favourite lines from the movies, and am surprised to find that I have not written about this for over two years. The most recent piece, “Get this boy a bib”, was about “Westworld” (the original 1973 release). Last night my children and I watched “Groundhog Day” again. It’s a… Continue reading “Sometimes people just die”
A short piece about a short phrase: “my bad”. I don’t hate it, and I don’t use it. It came up in conversation recently when 14 of us had gathered for a meal on my wife’s birthday. One of the other mums said that she had only just come across the phrase and thought it… Continue reading “My Bad”
I do not read as much as I would like to, and I see far fewer movies than I used to. As noted before on these pages, many times, I try to keep up-to-date with two sets of award-winners from the worlds of books and movies: Booker Prizes and Academy Awards (or Oscars). I regard… Continue reading … and up-to-date with Booker winners again
For the first time in just over two years I am up-to-date with Oscar winners, so the following paragraph from my Projects Menu is still true: I have seen every major Oscar-winning movie going back to 1947. By “major” Oscar winner I mean every movie that has won at least one of the following: Best… Continue reading Up-to-date with Oscar winners again
If you follow the game of cricket, you will be familiar with the idea of a nightwatchman, a batsman who comes in at the fall of a wicket in the last few overs of a day’s play. The nightwatchman’s role is to take the pressure off the other batsman: face as many balls as possible,… Continue reading Word of the week: nighthawk
Here’s something I prepared earlier, and never finalized. It was drafted over three years ago in January 2020, the 25th anniversary of my first visit to the USA. I offer it here as a record of that first trip, to the Sundance Film Festival in Park City, Utah. There are over 1,300 words in this… Continue reading Sundance 1995
During the Christmas holidays, prompted by nothing in particular, I was thinking of three productions of “Richard II” that I have seen here in London over the last 20 years, and the actors who played the title role. The first production, at Shakespeare’s Globe in 2003, starred Mark Rylance. The second, in 2005, featured Kevin… Continue reading 11 Oscar winners on the London stage, and one in Stratford-on-Avon
The Compartments 