Category: Film, TV & Radio

Nicky Haslam

Nicky Haslam has had a variety of bedfellows but none more surprising than General Sir John Hackett, GCB, CBE, DSO & bar, MC and Sir Max Hastings. His autobiography, Redeeming Features, lies between Hackett’s I was a Stranger and Hastings’s Did You Really Shoot the Television? on my biog/diary shelves.

Social Anthropology

I read Anthropology (and Psychology and English) at Durham. The origins of Man were hard to get a grip on and defeated me. However, I did enjoy Social Anthropology. It may have inspired trips in later years to the Middle East, Africa and the Caucasus.

The Ballad of Buster Scruggs

A new Coen brothers film is usually good news and this time they have turned their hand to a Western for the first time since True Grit in 2010.

Banjo Boy

When I was at Durham University I saw John Boorman’s 1972 Deliverance for the first time.  It is a chiller/killer/thriller that starts innocently.

Aristocrats

Appropriately, bottles of Jameson and Hennessy rub shoulders alongside the programme for Aristocrats by Brian Friel. I went to the matinee on Saturday.

Upstairs, Downstairs

My memory plays tricks. I thought I watched Upstairs, Downstairs upstairs in the library at Barmeath with a TV supper on this tray and my terrier squashed beside me in an armchair. That was how I watched lots of other TV while my mother and grandparents were downstairs in the dining room.

Allelujah!

Yesterday morning’s Ancient World Breakfast Club (AWBC) talk was given by Dr Aggeliki Kompoholi who teaches at the National and Kapodistrian University of Athens.