The Game are ending. A strange summer Olympic Games, which many in Japan and elsewhere thought ought not to have taken place, given how Covid-19 is afflicting the people. Yet it did, and the moment it did so everything else disappeared, and all there was were people in contests against one another, participating in somethingRead More
It’s a mad world out there. For too long there has been no escape into galleries, those places where disorder should dissolve and the eye focus on things that make sense. Elusively at times, but sense nonetheless. Now, in Britain at least, and for the time being at least, Covid-19 restrictions are retreating, letting galleriesRead More
At last, after a year and a half at least, I got to see a day’s professional cricket. Having played some games for Members only, Kent County Cricket Club opened up its doors to ordinary folk such as myself. We had to book ahead, we were allocated seats, and the necessary constraints were a bitRead More
At the start of 2020 Bob Dylan might have been looking forward to a quiet year. He had a few new recordings lined up or completed. There would be around 100 concerts – par for the course. He might weld a few gates, sip a little more whiskey, and rest a while. He was goingRead More
One medium that has shone out during the coronavirus pandemic has been radio. From the very start of the crisis, through lockdowns one and two, and life under tiers, radio – and I’m thinking particularly of community radio – has responded with alacrity and great enterprise. All media has responded to the pandemic with urgencyRead More
Among the saddest sights in half-empty London are its theatres. Walk along Shaftesbury Avenue and adjoining streets, and there is theatre after theatre advertising empty shows. The Victorian and Edwardian grand buildings, with their stony solidity, graced with sculptural curlicues and busts of Shakespeare, proudly bearing the names of theatrical greats, squeezed tightly into theRead More
There is a checklist I have of steps to normality. Catch a train – done. Sit at a table in a coffee shop and drink coffee while reading newspaper – done. Visit a second-hand bookshop – done. See any sort of cricket played live – done. There are many steps yet to be achieved, alasRead More
After four months of Coronavirus lockdown, I was able to sit once more in a coffee shop, drink my coffee and read a newspaper. It felt like returning to myself. The shop was a Costa branch; it’s about fifty yards down the road from where I live. The shop has re-opened for a while now,Read More
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
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