In Citizen Kane (USA 1941) there is a key sequence in which newspaper baron Charles Foster Kane (played by Orson Welles) and his would-be opera singer wife Susan (played by Dorothy Comingore) are alone in a vast room in Xanadu, Kane’s mock castle home. Susan sits at a table, tackling a large wooden jigsaw puzzleRead More
It’s time for another day in Canterbury. Since taking up care of a senior person resident in the city there have been many days spent here. On the train down I am close to finishing Walter Miller’s A Canticle for Leibowitz, the classic science fiction novel that literary types allow themselves to read. Its storyRead More
One of the few sage pieces of advice that I have been able to offer to others is, when giving a talk, to make sure you know how many words get spoken in a minute. A 20-minute talk is going to be 3,000 words (assuming that you are reading from a script). It works, trustRead More
It is sad to hear of the recent death of Don Swift, former cataloguer at the National Film Archive, as the BFI National Archive was known in his time. Don was steady, wise, understanding and deeply knowledgeable (especially about mountaineering and cricket – his detailed shotlists of archival cricket films are masterpieces of description andRead More
Scrolling through a social media channel, as one does when the mind is at its idlest, I saw a familiar film clip, posted with the intention of making us happy. Certain clips have gained seemingly eternal traction online, recurring as some new person discovers them or someone reposts them because they know the clip willRead More
I’m ending the year, as I traditionally do, with some of my favourite photographs from that year. I’m no photographer, and it just didn’t turn out to be one of those years where I felt visually inspired (most of the time), but these I like anyway. Just why I take more photographs of staircases thanRead More
Normally at this time of year I would produce a series of blog posts on my cultural adventures over the past year, typically a post on favourite music, one on books, one on films, one on art exhibitions visited, and one on photographs I have taken over the year. I like reading the ones IRead More
Steve Cropper has died, the finest of all studio guitarists. The obituaries have been fulsome, so no need here to add to the biographical details. In outline, he was a guitarist, writer and producer behind many soul classics, chiefly as member of Stax Records‘ house band the Mar-Keys and its off-shoot, Booker T and theRead More
If you have a favourite poet then among their works you will have a favourite poem. It is where the heart lies. One of the poets I most cherish is Ben Jonson (1572-1637), and the poem of his to which I always return is ‘Inviting a Friend to Supper’. The poem comes from Jonson’s 1616Read More
Pity the poor British Library, an institution which simultaneously does such great things, yet at the same time seems to have utterly lost its way. The cyberattack of 2023 has created damage not only to its digital infrastructure (the full extent of which I fear has yet to be admitted…) but to the institution’s mindset.Read More