Category: Film, TV & Radio

Où est le Garlic

“I’m going to cook you the best meal you’ve ever eaten.” That’s how Harry Palmer (Michael Caine) seduces Jean Courtney (Sue Lloyd) in The Ipcress File, the 1965 film version of Len Deighton’s 1962 novel.

Fingers on the Button

If you live in a democracy it’s a good plan to have the casting vote (just in case). Votes cast for watching University Challenge at home are exactly 50% in favour but I don’t have that casting vote, so it’s a treat to be on my own for a few days and to indulge.

In Translation

I am reading, in translation, Joseph Roth’s novella, The Legend of the Holy Drinker, translated and introduced by Wykehamist, Michael Hofmann.

Down Your Way

I am going to play you something by Yorkshire-born composer, Haydn Wood. If you are my age it may sound familiar.

Daytime TV

You don’t watch daytime TV do you? That would be Pointless and show you up as an Egghead. Allow me to digress …

The Man Who …

If it’s in back and white and a foreign language it’s usually my kind of film – pretentious dilettante that I am.

For Starters

There are two great American novels narrated through the eyes of children – both girls, as it happens. One is To Kill a Mockingbird and the other? Here’s how it starts.

Barry Lyndon

Cast your mind back a few years – to 1844, when Thackeray’s The Luck of Barry Lyndon came out. I may have started it years ago but I’m pretty sure that I got bogged down and didn’t finish reading it. Stanley Kubrick read it all and his 1975 film eclipses the book to such an… Continue reading Barry Lyndon

First Night of the Proms

The Proms kicked off last night with an unscheduled piece – La Marseillaise. The Prommers were of course already standing but the rest of the packed Albert Hall rose to their feet for this mark of respect to France. 

Le Corbeau

Alan Furst writes atmospheric espionage novels, usually set in WW II. His first successful book was Night Soldiers, published in 1988. It is excellent but it left him with a problem, one he shares with Simon Raven, whose Brother Cain was published in 1959.