Month: February 2017

Crossing the Line

French researchers have made a study of behaviour at pedestrian crossings controlled by lights. They observed 5,445 people at crossings in Strasbourg and Nagoya (Japan).

Published
Categorised as Psychology

Santa Cruz Islands

The red pin marks the Santa Cruz Islands. It also represents the end of one story and the beginning of another. The first is about James Goodenough.

How to Save the NHS

This is what came through my letter box. “No cuts, no closures, no privatisation.” What are these ninnies on about?

Published
Categorised as Politics

Mr Boddy’s Rag-Bag

  No doubt about it, going to Eton makes you grow up fast. Aged thirteen you choose what newspapers and magazines you want delivered, open a bank or, in my case, a Post Office account and pick a tailor.

Published
Categorised as Business

Hugging

On a Friday in November 1957, Rupert Hart-Davis was invited to lunch by Cecil Beaton at his house in Pelham Place. There was a butler and the other guests were Nancy Cunard, Mrs Ian Fleming and Somerset Maugham.

Published
Categorised as Theatre

I, Daniel Blake

The weather has been so miserable with a biting east wind and snow flurries that I went back to the cinema. What I saw did not cheer me up.

Wonderful Wagner

If you find Wagner so long-winded that you wriggle, fidget and long for a drink, I know the feeling. A friend has a special Wagner wrist-watch that discreetly lights up so she can check the time. Another friend told me that the thing is, Waggers takes his time, doesn’t rush things – tantric opera. The… Continue reading Wonderful Wagner

Published
Categorised as Music

Great Scott

The St Pancras Renaissance Hotel was originally the Midland Grand Hotel designed by Sir Gilbert Scott in 1865. Did Sir Gilbert think he’d done enough that year?

A Forgotten Author

I don’t know how I know the story of The Monkey’s Paw. Perhaps it was done as a play at Castle Park or read to us there? It is a short story published in 1902 and subsequently adapted for stage, screen and the wireless. The genre, if you don’t know it, is spooky, chiller,thriller.

A Flying Soloist

An opera that I will swerve is Mittwoch aus Licht (Wednesday from Light) composed by Karlheinz Stockhausen. It received its premiere in Birmingham in 2012. It may be a while before it gets another outing.

Published
Categorised as Music