Globalisation

Is globalisation good, bad or inevitable? It should be good. It should provide jobs and raise living standards in developing (euphemism for poor) countries.

Grecian Bronzes

Attitudes to recycling have changed beyond recognition in my lifetime. When I was a child we never picked up used cartridge cases – they had cardboard cases and nobody bothered about the metal caps.

Incense and Truffles

Macbeth; Act I: First Witch … her husband’s to Aleppo gone … On Good Friday in 2000 I didn’t pay for a ticket on the Heathrow Express and I wasn’t a fare dodger. I went to the wrong terminal and there was no charge to take the train between terminals. I just caught the direct BA… Continue reading Incense and Truffles

St Yeghichè and St Cyprian

In a dictatorship when said dictator wants to impose his will he issues a Presidential Decree and at a stroke the dictator’s whim is law.   In the UK there are democratic elections and two chambers in parliament to debate and scrutinise legislation. That is unless something is too trivial to detain our politicians, such… Continue reading St Yeghichè and St Cyprian

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.

An Ambassador in the Family

Nigel Farage has, it seems, struck up a rapport with President-elect Trump; an unlikely friendship as Trump doesn’t drink. Might Farage be a suitable UK ambassador to the United States?

On The Street

The scaffolding is finally being removed from the LAMDA theatre fly tower. It’s no beauty. It reminds me of a giant water tank.

The Wall That Donald Built

This is where I put my friend Edward (Ned) York after his mis-reading of the likely outcome of the American Presidential election. Anyway, I have relented and let him out this morning with another rather interesting guest-blog.

Remembrance Sunday

This is the interior of Les Invalides chapel in Paris. Funny to call it a chapel when it is such a monumental edifice. Louis XIV started building Les Invalides in 1670 as a retirement home and hospital for his old soldiers.

Hooray for Mateus Rosé

An army friend told me that he had arranged a reunion dinner for his intake at Sandhurst. To make it more interesting he got copies of their Sandhurst reports and put them at their places. They all opened them, most laughed and shared the contents with their neighbours but some hastily put them away. These… Continue reading Hooray for Mateus Rosé