From jute, jam and journalism to video games and the V&A: the transformation of Dundee
Not so long ago, the Dundee waterfront was presided over by a great triumphal arch, built to commemorate Queen Victoria’s…
The Budapest Festival Orchestra make all other orchestra look routine and oafish
Looney Tunes was always at its best when soundtracked by a Hungarian gypsy dance. (Watch ‘Pigs in a Polka’ if…
A historical whodunnit that lets you into a forgotten world: The Paston Treasure reviewed
In 1675 Lady Bedingfield wrote to Robert Paston, first Earl of Yarmouth. Never, she exclaimed, had she seen anything so…
All the good non-fiction that was ever on TV was made by middle-aged men
All the good non-fiction things that were ever on TV — from Kenneth Clark’s Civilisation to David Attenborough’s Planet Earth…
Podcasts still have a long way to go to challenge the best of conventional radio
Here’s a thought. Matthew Bannister, former Radio 1 controller turned presenter of programmes such as Outlook on the World Service…
Oh dear: Yardie reviewed
Yardie is Idris Elba’s first film as a director and what I have to say isn’t what I wanted to…
Brian Friel’s Aristocrats should be called ‘Posh People Move House’
Non-stop chatterbox and mystifyingly revered fabricator of sub-Chekovian paddywhackery, Brian Friel has received another production at the Donmar. His play…
Pretentious jowly mumrock: Neil Diamond’s Hot August Night III reviewed
Grade: C+ Mumrock. A lucrative genre, dating from the beginning of the 1970s, when Mums suddenly wanted something a little…
Wild flowers and mountain peaks are no substitute for a pretty woman
Gstaad The pastoral heaven of this place can get very dull during the summer months. Green hillsides, neat farmsteads, pleasing…
What would Oscar tell his dad first about our eventful fortnight in the south of France?
I was present in the room when Oscar encountered his father for the first time since returning from his fortnight…
When you compare ragwort to Islamic extremism, who should be more offended?
When I made a joke about ragwort being like Islamic extremism, I expected someone to write in. I was fully…
Why Goodwood is the toughest course for jockeys
Having spent most of my life among politicians I guess I have become unaccustomed to candour. The only example I…
Bridge
All the best players today are technically excellent in card play. They know all the odds and end plays to…
Shak attack
The Azeri grandmaster Shakhriyar Mamedyarov has been distinguishing himself recently at both classical and speed chess time limits. Last month…
no. 521
White to play. This is from Mamedyarov–Georgiadis, Biel 2018. Many of Mamedyarov’s games feature a kingside attack based upon a…
Pundemic
In Competition No. 3063 you were invited to submit a poem about puns containing puns. Dryden regarded paronomasia as…
2374: Watch your step
The unclued lights (three of two words) are of a kind. Across 1 Slices top of sausage in…
to 2371: In a paddy
The unclued lights and those clued without thematic definition (2, 11, 26, 33 and 42) are Irish forenames. Nuala Considine’s…
Why is a BBC executive calling for the removal of middle-aged white men from television?
Cassian Harrison, the editor of BBC Four, told the Edinburgh International Television Festival last week that no one wants to…
Watch out comrade: big business is turning communist
Is it me, or is business becoming a teeny-weeny bit Stalinist? Common features include 1) Paranoia about political ideology; 2)…
Dear Mary: How can I weed out the party ‘flakes’?
Q. I invited four younger colleagues, all in their mid to late thirties, to go for a meal at a…
The great Seven Stars – but not, alas, its furry bar staff – is immune to change
Roy Hattersley once wrote a plangent passage about a painful aspect of the human condition: the short span of animals’…
1880s slang: How to fig a nag and pitch a snide
‘I want my money back,’ said my husband. ‘This is from the 1880s, not the 1980s.’ He looked up from…
Dumping Turnbull
At a funeral, there are those who are in mourning and those who are merely paying their respects. For the…
