Category: Film, TV & Radio

Alphabet Soup

I have a fiendishly difficult quiz for you today. Here is a list of men (clue: no women) and I simply want you to guess which one of them has this alphabet soup after his name, KT, GCVO, GBE, CB, TD, PC and what these ten men have in common.

Douglas

He was born in London in 1913 but brought up in Paris where his father was correspondent for the Daily Herald. A degree in Mathematics from the Sorbonne gives no clue as to the direction his life took.

On Days Like These

On Wednesday evening Matt Monro was crooning “on days like these … “ Where was I? No trumpets, no foie gras but I was in heaven. Gentlemen in England now a-bed shall think themselves accurs’d they were not at Opera Holland Park on 1st August which in fact is not St Crispin’s Day (25th October).

Arabesque

Stanley Donen is probably a household name in America but he’s only just come on the radar in Margravine Gardens.

Red Notice

In 1969 I saw a film I have never forgotten, Z. It was the first film I’d seen that had a serious political message. It is about the assassination of a left wing Greek politician in 1963 by his right wing opponents and the government cover-up that ensued. The film is based on a book… Continue reading Red Notice

Annabel

People say “what goes around comes around”, EM Foster says “only connect” and Anthony Powell wrote Dance to the Music of Time to make the same point at somewhat greater length; a saga with which I struggled a bit early on, but once WW II came along I was hooked.

The Mighty Fallen

Last month I quoted at some length the Trial and acquital of Francis Bellew. Forty years ago I was up before the beak myself on trivial charges – a case I will tell you about when the time is ripe. Today I’m musing on a quotation from the Second Book of Samuel: “how art the… Continue reading The Mighty Fallen

Richmond

Yesterday I was looking at the underside of the footbridge at Richmond Lock. It was past high water but the three barriers were raised and I was trying to see how they are concealed, they were invisible and there doesn’t seem to be room. Then it happened.

Today

The Today Programme has changed a lot in its sixty years on air. Every tweak has been met with outrage from listeners allergic to change of any sort and then been accepted as the new normal.

Phantom Threads

Phantom Threads is supposed to be Daniel Day-Lewis’s swan song, but I suppose he will be enticed back to appear in cameo roles.