Category Archives: books films arts etc

An excur­sion to the West York­shire mill vil­lage where Titus Salt and David Hock­ney vie for pre-eminence.  Salt for his con­cep­tion of an entire com­munity in West York­shire stone, com­plete with mill, church, school, massive meet­ing hall and sports ground; … Con­tinue read­ing →

I first read Cor­mac McCarthy’s “All the Pretty Horses” soon after it came out, in 1991, and am aston­ished to say I remembered almost noth­ing about it — which is amaz­ing because on re-reading I find it one of the … Con­tinue read­ing →

The Orson Welles film man­aged to over­come a poor copy (smudged sound) mainly because of the dra­matic cine­ma­to­graphy — clas­sic Welles with strange angles and light­ing and  a cast happy to ham up to the exager­rated types he rev­els in. … Con­tinue read­ing →

A volume of short stor­ies — “Trav­el­ling Light.”  But no one does, or can.  Other people bring you their bag­gage.  Dis­turb­ing and fascinating stuff

The film of Le Carre’s Tinker Tailor… is just won­der­ful — so atmo­spheric — 70s — and rep­lic­ates the novel in that most of the time you are not at all sure what is going on and who is betray­ing … Con­tinue read­ing →

I’ve been catch­ing up on the slim volumes of poetry that are linger­ing on my bed­side table.  Pau­line Kirk’s “Owl­stone” is by no means the most recent of her pub­lic­a­tions, but is a good intro­duc­tion to the work of this … Con­tinue read­ing →

I first came across Rose­mary Sutcliff’s “The Eagle of the Ninth” back in the 50s when it was seri­al­ised on BBC radio’s “Children’s Hour.”  It appealed to me then as a won­der­ful study of loy­alty (though I wouldn’t have put … Con­tinue read­ing →