A S H Smyth › Everyman, I will go with thee, and be thy Bluffer’s Guide

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Tag Archives: The Oldie

Everyman, I will go with thee, and be thy Bluffer’s Guide

Monday, June 4, 2018

Last weekend I played host to a particularly friendly cricket match – by which I mean that both teams had no clue what they were doing. The opposition, Rain Men, were captained by my friend and usual team-mate Simon, whose excuse was that he’d only played the game 263 times previously. The other captain was, […]

Filed in Journalism, review | Also tagged beer, Bluffer's Guides, Boris Starling, Brexit, cats, conversation, cricket, cycling, Duckworth Lewis, Englishmen, etiquette, fishing, footnotes, Fuller Pilch, girlfriends, golf, Harry Eyres, Haynes Publishing, humour, James Trollope, Jonathan Goodall, Keith Hann, leadership, management, Marcus Berkmann, Mike Brearley, Nick Yapp, opera, Rain Men, Samuel Johnson, Serbo-Croat, social media, South Africans, Susie Boniface, Test Match Special, Town Malling, William Hanson, wine, wisdom | Comments (0)

Monty’s trouble

Monday, May 28, 2018

A footsoldier’s review of Antony Beevor’s Arnhem: the Battle for the Bridges, 1944. — For The Oldie

Filed in Journalism, review | Also tagged 1st Airborne Division, Allied Expeditionary Force, Antony Beevor, army, Arnhem, books, Britishness, engineering, Field Marshal Montgomery, Flanders, General Bradley, General Eisenhower, General Patton, Germans, history, Holland, Nijmegen, non-fiction, Operation Market Garden, paratroopers, Prince Bernhard of Lippe-Biesterfeld, the Dutch, the Schutzstaffel, the Wehrmacht, WW2 | Comments (0)

Sehr Gutenberg

Wednesday, May 16, 2018

On movable type, the Internet, and almost every damn thing in between. — For The Oldie

Filed in correspondence, Journalism | Also tagged blogging, books, Germany, Gutenberg, information, Latin, Mainz, marginalia, monks, movable type, printing, Project Gutenberg, publishing, religion, scriptoria, Sellar and Yeatman, Stephan Füssel, TASCHEN, technology, the Bible, the Göttingen Library, the internet, Umberto Eco, UNESCO, vellum | Comments (0)

Spies like us?

Tuesday, May 8, 2018

A less-than-Smiley response to John le Carré. — For The Oldie

Filed in correspondence, Journalism | Also tagged books, George Smiley, John le Carré, lexicons, London, maps, memoir, MI5, MI6, Penguin, spies, walking | Comments (0)

Creation-ism

Wednesday, April 18, 2018

This weekend I will be joining a local choral society for their performance of Haydn’s The Creation – and what better way to welcome Spring now that it’s finally arrived. An avowed and much-loved masterpiece from its earliest performances – Vienna, 1798 – ‘whose appeal [I read from A Peter Brown’s DECCA sleeve-notes] was irresistible […]

Filed in correspondence, Journalism | Also tagged A Peter Brown, Aled Jones, army, bassoons, Beethoven, Chapel Royal, choral societies, Christianity, cosmology, cricket, DECCA, German, Germans, Hampton Court, Handel, Haydn, Italians, Kent, King James, Maidstone, Milton, music, Napoleon, oratorio, Oxford University, Poetry, religion, school, sheep, singing, Spring, the Bible, the Church of England, the French, the Oxford Spezzati, tigers, Vienna, war, West Kensington, whales, worms | Comments (0)

Around the world in 60 minutes

Wednesday, March 14, 2018

On microlecturing, the RGS, and a whistlestop tour around the Jaffna peninsula. — For The Oldie

Filed in correspondence, Journalism | Also tagged anthropology, Australia, Christopher Ondaatje, cinema, coral, cycling, depression, drink, exploration, Fearghal O'Nuallain, geography, Hemingway, India, Jaffna, Levison Wood, Mary-Ann Ochota, Matthieu Tordeur, microlecturing, migration, Mongolia, Nicholas Crane, photography, public speaking, Pushkar, Rajasthan, Royal Geographical Society, running, Ruper Sagar-Musgrave, Scotland, South-East Asia, Sri Lanka, the Himalayas, the Pacific Crest Trail, the Zambezi, Transcaucasus, travel, TV, walking, war | Comments (0)

Tripping hither, tripping thither

Wednesday, March 7, 2018

When I went to the bar as a very young man, it was often enough in the company of the Oxford University Gilbert & Sullivan Society. My relationship with G&S had started early, specifically the argument in Three Men in a Boat over which song Harris is trying to sing (I remain confused to this […]

Filed in correspondence, Journalism | Also tagged All Souls College, Arcadia, Bletchingdon, Brexit, clowns, comedy, Deceased Wife's Sister's Marriage Act 1907, donkeys, drink, English National Opera, fairies, food, French, G Schirmer, Greek, Grenadier Guards, Holywell Music Room, Iolanthe, Jacob Rees-Mogg, Jerome K Jerome, Kazakhstan, ketamine, Latin, law, librettos, Mount Ararat, music, opera, Oxford University, Oxford University Gilbert & Sullivan Society, plebs, politics, Richard D'Oyly Carte, Savoy Theatre, sex, shepherds, Sir Arthur Sullivan, Sir William Schwenk Gilbert, the Conservative Party, the House of Lords, the Liberal Party, The West Wing, voice, women | Comments (0)

On ranting

Thursday, February 1, 2018

If there’s one thing I just can’t abide, it’s ranters. Not the C17th religious nonconformists. Folk who can’t shut up about things. You know the type. The workplace philosophers; the shouters at the TV; people in whose eyes you see the glint of socialist dictatorship. They come in every walk of life. Stupid boxers (*tautology […]

Filed in correspondence, Journalism | Also tagged Adolf Hitler, Alex Ferguson, Bangalore, Basil Fawlty, boxers, British Rail, Charlie Sheen, comedians, customer services, Denmark, dictatorship, Donald Trump, fathers, Geoffrey Boycott, Hamlet, humour, Jeremy Clarkson, John McEnroe, Mel Gibson, memoirs, men, Michael Richards, Naomi Campbell, philosophy, phones, pubs, ranting, religion, Samuel Johnson, socialism, The Daily Mail, the Labour Party, TV, Will Self | Comments (0)

Fun run

Wednesday, January 17, 2018

Or; how to raise money for charity and feel bad doing it. — For The Oldie

Filed in correspondence, Journalism | Also tagged Adidas, Bilal Hassen, Borussia Dortmund, cappuccino, charity, Colombo, Hilton Residences, Lady Ridgeway Hospital for Children, Manchester City, Mount Lavinia, Nigel Havers, rugby, running, Sri Lanka, Thaabit Ahmed, Thaabit Ahmed Football Academy, Valencia CF | Comments (0)

A hero’s welcome

Tuesday, December 19, 2017

Dunkirk – THE UNTOLD STORY!! — For The Oldie

Filed in correspondence, Journalism | Also tagged 11th Armoured Division, 51st Highland Division, 97th (Kent Yeomanry) Field Regiment, army, British Expeditionary Force, Canterbury, champagne, Channel Islands, cricket, Croix de Guerre, D-Day, Dunkirk, Elsie Adeline Cockersell, film, France, Germans, incarceration, James Kingford Carson, Kent, livery companies, love, moustaches, Nazis, Normandy, Royal Artillery, Royal Electrical and Mechanical Engineers, sea-faring, St Valery-en-Caux, war, women, Yorkshire | Comments (0)