Shortly after hearing the sad news that Neil Innes had died (on 29 December 2019), I sought out some of his music. The first tune that came up was the theme to The Innes Books of Records, his BBC Two television series that ran 1979-1982. A simple, ghostly figure on a jangly piano sets upRead More
Last in this series looking back on 2019 is the year in some favourite images (mostly mine). This was the year in which I visited Greece, the Lake District (twice), walked many miles through the Kent countryside, took part in the digitisation of many newspapers, visited art galleries and snapped the other visitors, and continuedRead More
I read a lot of books in 2019. I bought more than I read, but those are almost separate pleasures, two different kinds of discovery. One is a quest, the other an exploration. I guess that the linked goal is a search for an ideal: the pristine copy, or one that has aged gently, tastefullyRead More
My new year’s resolution for 2019 was to go to the cinema once a week. It’s a sad admission that someone whose career has been mostly built around film should need this sort of a spur, but though films attract me no less than ever they did, cinemas do not. There seems to be somethingRead More
Third in this short series of posts on my cultural highlights for 2019 is works of art. Here are a few favourite artworks from a year’s gallery-going, letting the images speak for themselves. For each I’ve given the artwork, artist and date, the name of the gallery where I saw it, and the name ofRead More
Next up in my reviews of the year is the year in music. Spotify, which clearly is keeping a watchful eye on me, has passed on the information that I listened to 4,535 different songs over 2019. I’m not quite sure whether this is too many, average, or less than I would listen to whenRead More
So here we are at the end of another year. Who knows where the time goes? Only the archivists. Anyway, as is now traditional, it is time for some reviews of the year, noting the things cultural that attracted me over the year. As is also traditional, we start with a review of the yearRead More
Martin Scorsese has been inveighing against modern cinema trends. He cannot see the dramatic value in all these films based on superhero comic characters, and indeed it is puzzling how such thin content can have been stretched so far and yet has remained popular. But he has also said that he does not want usRead More
I grew up among rocks. My parents lived in Tunbridge Wells, and while for some the town might suggest only crusty generals and snobbery over the tea cups, for others Tunbridge Wells has meant climbing and adventure. The surrounding countryside is blessed with sandstone outcrops, whose evocative names still resonate for me with a powerfulRead More
How intriguing to find a temple to Mithras resting underneath a temple to Mammon. Having visited the Guildhall amphitheatre and the nearby remains of Roman walls the other day, I have got the taste for seeking out Roman London. And so to the Bloomberg building in Walbrook (once a river, now a road) in theRead More