19th November 2007 The Birmingham Book Festival was once a major event but in recent years it has declined into a pathetic populist charade, populated by the latest celebrity biographers, and aimed at boosting Waterstone's profits as far as one could tell. This year however, it returned with a serious and interesting programme. We would …
Grayling on Reading (OP)
Although when I started this blog I only transferred a few entries from their old home, I have decided that the time has come to move over everything that I might want to refer back to in the future. The excellence of the WordPress search facility is another compelling reason for doing this, as is the …
2009 in Reading
This entry is inspired by (or a blatant rip-off of!) my friend Ellen's wonderful blog at http://ellenandjim.wordpress.com/2010/01/05/another-year-in-reading/ about the books she read in 2009 which made a particular impact on her. It is also a personal celebration of the fact that I am now able to do this fairly easily since switching to a new blog provider …
December Miscellany (2009)
December, as may be surmised from the comparative paucity of blog entries, was not a good month. This should come as no surprise to me as it is, with January, one of the two worst average months. Although this might indicate some form of Seasonal Affective Disorder (SAD) this is not so as February is one of the …
Some Musings on 2009 (of purely personal interest!)
The following consists very much of personal musings on the year unlikely to be of interest to anyone other than myself - they form part of that blogging activity which for me is part-diary, part-meditation. I just wanted to chronicle a few of the things which have happened in my life in 2009. First, I …
Continue reading Some Musings on 2009 (of purely personal interest!)
Some Very Short Introductions
The Very Short Introduction Series is published by the Oxford University Press and consists of an ever-increasing number of pocket-sized (11mmx17mm) introductions to a range of philosophic, scientific, literary, political, theological, historical, sociological and other subjects. The main practical joy of the books is their size: they are absolutely ideal for carrying in a pocket and being read …
December Movies
First Renoir's Boudu Saved From Drowning (1932) which is the earliest of his films available from Lovefilm. The film stars Michel Simon as Boudu, a tramp whom bookseller Lestingois saves from drowning and adopts into his household; there the anarchic Boudu causes great disturbance before he wins the lottery; having married the maid the whole household embarks on a boating trip, …
November Miscellany
Overall November has been another good month despite some bad days at the end compounded by a resurgence of back trouble. This month's miscellany is dominated by television (and quite a bit of it bad television at that!) but that is partly because I have hived off comments on other forms to separate blogs ('Three …
Three Courtesans
By one of those strange co-incidences in the course of six days we saw three very different productions, in three different art forms (theatre, cinema and opera), in all of which courtesans were the central characters. This was certainly completely unplanned, but provides the chance for a blog which includes some reflections on the whole …
On The Life and Death of Colonel Blimp
Powell and Pressburger's Life and Death of Colonel Blimp, with which I have opened my PandP retrospective, is my favourite film. I do not make this claim lightly or easily. and recognise that there are times when I would advance the claims of other contenders for this title. It is, however, the only contender which is also, …
Moving Toyshop 