225. I remember walking past the anti-apartheid protesters outside South Africa House, day after day after day 226. I remember hide-and-seek 227. I remember Mary Hopkin 228. I remember Ilie Nastase, tennis rebel 229. I remember struggling over seven times eight when learning my times tables 230. I remember Disney Time 231. I remember (canRead More
Yesterday I saw the five-and-a-half hour restoration of Abel Gance’s Napoléon (1927), which was shown at the Royal Festival Hall between 13:30 and 21:30 (there were three intervals), with the Philharmonia Orchestra and Carl Davis conducting his music. It’s the third time I’ve seen the film (not counting the DVD of the US version ofRead More
Who saw this one coming? Bob Dylan as a welder of gates? The Halcyon Gallery in Bond Street is currently hosting Mood Swings, an exhibition of ornamental gates and associated metalwork crafted by a man, who when he isn’t composing, recording, touring, writing, broadcasting or indeed painting, clearly likes to go a junkyard, pick upRead More
The World Chess Championship has started, and I am glued to my screen. Along with millions of others, I am able to follow the contest between India’s Vishy Anand (the current world champion) and Norway’s Magnus Carlsen through a bewildering variety of options, as the internet connects up all of us across the globe toRead More
Here’s a curious anecdote. I live in a town rich in brick walls of every age and description. I like photographing them (I wrote a post about this a while ago). I put several of these photographs on my Flickr site, should anyone want to look at photographs of brick walls for themselves. Time movedRead More
189. I remember delighting in the name of the cricketer Brian Brain 190. I remember Brand X 191. I remember my first football 192. I remember turning off the sound on the television when Vision On was broadcast to impress upon my younger brothers what it was like for the deaf 193. I remember Jackdaws,Read More
Today, October 27th, is UNESCO World Day for Audiovisual Heritage. The day is marked every year by audiovisual archives and archivists as a means to (in UNESCO’s words) “raise general awareness of the need for urgent measures to be taken and to acknowledge the importance of audiovisual documents as an integral part of national identity”.Read More
When did I last see The Big Parade? I can’t remember where or when? On a big screen, I think, and at least twenty years ago. My memory of it, apart from its huge emotional impact, chiefly centred on the soldiers marching slowly through woods in the face of gunfire. I saw the film againRead More
I’ve had enough of these long, infrequent posts. I spend ages deliberating over what to write, then still longer putting off writing itself because it takes up so much time – and once I’ve started I can’t stop. Shorter, pithier, more frequent – that’s what’s required. In the interim, here’s a photo from today, takenRead More
The national newspaper collection is on the move. Next month, the British Newspaper Library – part of the British Library – will be leaving Colindale, north London, its home since 1932. Countless researchers have made use of the Colindale reading rooms over the past eighty years, and it is held in great affection, but fewRead More