It’s another sunny day. Today I shall visit Rochester, because Rochester is where I live, and to where I am confined in these days of Coronavirus lockdown, even as that lockdown is beginning to be eased. For the time being, Rochester is the world. Early morning Zoom call, talking to early evening Sydney. How quicklyRead More
There can hardly be a better place for observing the continuum of history and time than the Medway valley. While life may appear to have slowed to a standstill in these days of lockdown, brought about by the coronavirus pandemic, everywhere I turn there are the layers of time, as though looking at an exposedRead More
The oldest item in my book collection dates from 1809. It is small volume with 314 pages of minuscule type entitled The Tablet of Memory. The early nineteenth century being an age of grandiloquent book titles, its full name naturally fills most of a page: The Tablet of Memory; Shewing Every Memorable Event in History,Read More
Bob Dylan is the man for a global crisis. His album Love and Theft was unwittingly released on 11 September 2001, a cornerstone of culture at a time when the world seemed to be tumbling. Now, in the middle of the coronavirus pandemic that has see a quarter of the world’s population retreat behind itsRead More
The first feature film that Buster Keaton directed, The Three Ages, is not perhaps as familiar as it should be. A comic history of love in prehistoric, Roman and modern times, it has Keaton fighting his rival, Wallace Beery, over a girl and winning her against the odds each time. Allegedly parodying Intolerance, it isRead More
Finally we come to the top 20 of this listing of 100 instrumentals by 100 favourite guitarists of mine. I like lists. They make sense of things. 20. Nic Jones, ‘Planxty Davis’ Nic Jones had the most distinctive and admired style of guitar playing. In simple terms, it sounds like more than one person isRead More
Here is the fourth of five posts listing a top 100 favourite guitarists of mine, from number 100 to number one. All of the pieces are instrumentals – I decided that there should be nothing to detract from the guitar itself. It is a personal top 100, selected more by sentiment than science. There areRead More
Here is part three of a series of five posts listing 100 favourite guitarists of mine, from number 100 to number one. All of the pieces selected are instrumentals – I decided that there should be nothing to detract from the guitar itself. It is a personal top 100, selected more by sentiment than science.Read More
As said, over five posts I am listing a top 100 favourite guitarists, from number 100 to number one. All of the pieces I have picked are as much favourites irrespective of the performer, as much as they are examples of their best work. All are instrumentals – I decided that there should be nothingRead More
What is it about guitar music that I find so compelling? The interest has been not so much in the guitar as one feature of a group, but as a solo endeavour, where all is stripped away that detracts from letting the instrument speak for itself. There is pleasure in the sound of the guitar,Read More