We are half-way through the latest series of “Strictly Come Dancing”. As noted before on this Blog, this BBC1 show is the most-watched TV programme here in the UK, and constitutes a large part of our family viewing. Most Saturday evenings the four of us are gathered in the living-room for the live show, and… Continue reading Word of the week: spoiler
We have become Netflix subscribers, for a month at least. As you probably know, Netflix is a streaming service, allowing you to watch films and TV programmes via the internet. It also produces new content, dramas like “The Crown” and movies like “Murder Mystery” starring Jennifer Aniston and Adam Sandler. Over the weekend my daughter… Continue reading Word of the week: Netflix
In January 2016, a few weeks after this Blog was set up, I wrote this piece, “You always have time to pee”. It brought together two things (a story that was in the news and a personal memory) to illustrate what we have tried to teach our children throughout their young lives: there is always… Continue reading “You always have time to pee” revisited
Back in September I wrote this piece about “The Clock”, Christian Marclay’s installation at Tate Modern here in London. As I noted, using words from the Tate’s website, it is “a montage of thousands of film and television images of clocks, edited together so they show the actual time. It is a thrilling journey through… Continue reading Beaten by “The Clock”
Cast your mind back 40 years, if you can. You arrive in November 1978. “Rat Trap” by the Boomtown Rats is at #1 here in the UK, having displaced “Summer Nights” by Olivia Newton-John and John Travolta after its 9 weeks at the top. Jim Callaghan is still prime minister. In the US Donna Summer… Continue reading 40 years ago, and 40 years before that
May 1987, the Cannes Film Festival, an event that I attended most years back then because of my involvement with a Film Festival here in the UK. As usual, this celebration of cinema on the Riviera coincided with the FA Cup Final back home. I watched the game at the British Pavilion, an occasion that… Continue reading The £30 bottle of Evian
This piece from last week, by Sirena Bergman in The Independent, begins, “Ten years ago I’d never heard the term ‘gaslighting’.” She discusses it in the context of a recent news story regarding two contestants on the most-watched show on UK television, “Strictly Come Dancing”, as you can see by following the link above. The… Continue reading Word of the week: gaslighting
