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Tag Archives: WWII

Late stylishness

Thursday, July 7, 2022

The Last Days of Roger Federer: And Other Endings By Geoff Dyer (Audiobook read by Richard Burnip, 11h 29m, Canongate Books, £21.87) . It’s late June, Wimbledon’s upon us, and Geoff Dyer is talking about his tennis injuries. Geoff Dyer is always talking about his tennis injuries. It’s one of his endearing features. But when […]

Filed in Journalism, review | Also tagged 9/11, Achilles, age, Al Pacino, Alfred Tennyson, Americans, Andy Murray, Anthony Powell, audiobooks, Beethoven, Bjorn Borg, Bob Dylan, Burning Man, Canongate, Chuck Yeager, Coetzee, Custer, David Cameron, David Thomson, De Chirico, death, DH Lawrence, drugs, epigraphs, football, footnotes, Geoff Dyer, George Best, George Saunders, Gerard Manley Hopkins, Gillian Slovo, Gillian Welch, health and safety, Henry James, humour, James Last, jazz, Jean Rhys, JMW Turner, John Berger, John Coltrane, Jorah Mormont, London, loo roll, Martin Scorsese, Mike Tyson, Mohicans, Nietzsche, non-fiction, Paris, Pete Sampras, Peter Ackroyd, Philip Larkin, Raymond Williams, Rebecca West, references, Richard Burnip, Roger Federer, shampoo, Tarkovsky, TC Boyle, tennis, The Doors, the Duke of Edinburgh's Award, the Olympics, trains, William Basinski, Wimbledon, work, YouTube | Comments (0)

A Hitch in time

Sunday, May 15, 2022

On the late, great Christopher Hitchens, and the role the Falklands may have played in his political development. — For The Critic

Filed in correspondence, Journalism | Also tagged 9/11, Admiral Graf von Spee, Adolf Hitler, Afghanistan, Africa, Alexander Haig, Argentina, Barack Obama, Battle Day, Borges, Britain, Caspar Weinberger, Christopher Hitchens, coffee, Commander Eric Hitchens, conservatives, Cossacks, Covid, Cristina Fernandez de Kirchner, Cyprus, Denis MacShane, Falklands Radio, football, Goose Green, Hector Timerman, Holland, Human Rights Watch, Iran, Iraq, Israel, Jacobo Timerman, Jeanne Kirkpatrick, Jews, Jorge Videla, Journalism, La Opinion, Lebanon, Lincoln's Inn, Lt Nick Taylor, Margaret Thatcher, Nazis, New York, Nicholas Henderson, Palestine, Robert Cox, Ronald Reagan, Salman Rushdie, terrorism, The Critic, The Falklands War, the Inquisition, the Junta, the left wing, the Mediterranean, The Nation, The New Statesman, the Pacific, the Royal Navy, The Spectator, the UN, the Union Jack, Ukraine, Washington DC, WWI | Comments (0)

Hiroo-worship

Monday, October 25, 2021

Review of Werner Herzog’s Das Dämmern der Welt – or (probably) The Twilight/Dawn (of the?) World. — For Perspective

Filed in Journalism, review | Also tagged army, Arnold Schwarzenegger, Audible, audiobooks, Emperor Akihito, Ferdinand Marcos, German, Google Translate, Hanser, Hiroo Onoda, Japan, kochbananen, Lubang, non-fiction, Perspective, Philippines, the Falklands, the moon, the Stasi, translation, TS Eliot, Vietnam, war, Weltanschauung, Werner Herzog, WG Sebald | Comments (0)

To the beat of her own conundrum

Sunday, August 1, 2021

Conundrum by Jan Morris Ukemi Audiobooks read by Roy McMillan . Born in 1926, into Anglo-Welsh upper-middle comfort, James Humphry Morris was educated at Christ Church, Lancing, and Christ Church again, served in the dashing 9th Queen’s Royal Lancers during WWII, climbed much of Everest and broke the news of Hillary and Tenzing’s successful 1953 […]

Filed in Journalism, review | Also tagged Adolf Eichmann, audiobooks, cabbies, cars, Casablanca, class, gender, identity, in-laws, Jan Morris, Journalism, Lancing College, memoir, men, Mount Everest, Oxford, Perspective, Roy McMillan, Suez, surgery, the Olympics, the Queen's Royal Lancers, transsexuals, travel, women, writing | Comments (0)

Zooming windows

Saturday, March 20, 2021

Interview with members of the George Formby Society, as they attempt to break an online ukulele-playing record. — For The Critic

Filed in feature, interview, Journalism | Also tagged Alastair Cook, America, army, Australia, banjos, Batley, BBC, Bette Davis, bingo, Blackpool, Canada, Covid-19, cricket, Cyprus, dating, Ed Balls, Facebook, Falkland Islands Radio Service, France, Frank Skinner, friends, George Formby, German, Germany, grandmothers, Guinness, Gyles Brandreth, Harry HIll, Hawaii, Humphrey Bogart, Italy, jellyfish, lyrics, mental health, music, naturism, nuclear power, proletarians, Queen Elizabeth II, records, Royal Albert Hall, Russia, Simon Rose, smut, Swahili, The Critic, The Daily Telegraph, the George Formby Society, the Queen Mother, the RAF, Tottenham, ukuleles, Warrington Museum, Welsh, windows, Yorkshire, Zoom | Comments (0)

A biographical note on Duncan Grant (apropos one of those Facebook challenges that do the rounds occasionally)

Monday, March 4, 2019

A weapons-grade Bloomsburyist, Duncan Grant (1885-1978) spent much of his early childhood in India (natch), where his grandfather had been Lieutenant-Governor of Bengal. He ‘became interested in Japanese prints’ while still at prep school. After attending St Paul’s, Westminster School of Art and the Slade School – interspersed with stints in Italy and France, of […]

Filed in Non-fictions | Also tagged Abyssinia, art, Bengal, Bloomsbury, Clive Bell, David Garnett, Duncan Grant, fancy dress, France, Horace de Vere Cole, India, Italy, Leonard Woolf, painting, portraits, Royal Navy, St Paul's Cathedral, St Paul's School, The Slade School, Vanessa Bell, Virginia Woolf, Westminster School of Art, WWI | Comments (0)

Extracts from the letters of Gerald Spence Smyth, Capt., 1st South African Irish Regt., Abyssinian campaign, 1941

Monday, February 25, 2019

6.2.41 I am given to understand that this is the 6th day of Feb. but for the life of me I don’t know what day of the week it is. Anyhow it doesn’t make any difference here. Excuse the dirt. A.A.¹ has just spilt some tea on my pad. The journey from the forest² to these […]

Filed in Non-fictions | Also tagged Abyssinia, Allan Arnott, biltong, Cape Point, censorship, Cyril Cochran, death, East Africa, Ethiopia, food, Gerald Fayle, Gerald Fayle Preston Smyth, Gerald Spence Smyth, infantry, Italians, letters, Mega, Micky Williamson, Muslims, Somalis, South Africa, South Africans, the Irish, war | Comments (0)

Intelligence review

Wednesday, August 15, 2018

‘For centuries before the Second World War, educated British people knew far more about intelligence operations recorded in the Bible than they did about the role of intelligence at any moment in their own history.’ Nowadays, one might think, few would even know that. But that’s where Christopher Andrew – Emeritus Professor of Modern and […]

Filed in Journalism, review | Also tagged Afghanistan, Allen Lane, America, Ancient Egypt, army, Bletchley Park, Cardinal Richelieu, China, Christianity, Christopher Andrew, Christopher Marlowe, CIA, Clausewitz, Elizabeth I, Francis Walsingham, history, Holland, India, Islam, Israel, Ivan the Terrible, Julius Caesar, MI5, MI6, Napoleon, non-fiction, Pearl Harbour, Russia, spies, Stalin, Sun Tzu, the Bible, the Cold War, the KGB, the Medway, The Oldie, the Spanish Armada, University of Cambridge, Vasili Mitrokhin, Venice, war, Waterloo, Xenophon | Comments (0)

NEWS AT A GLANCE

Monday, October 30, 2017

. The Queen won a first prize for bantams at the King’s Lynn Fur and Feather Society’s show. — The Nelson Evening Mail, January 6 1909 . In LA there is a chess set designed for the East India Company, featuring Sikh soldiers vs Afghans. Among a certain kind of people, being ‘passionate about Israel/Palestine’ […]

Filed in Journalism, NEWS AT A GLANCE | Also tagged (il)literacy, Afghans, bantams, birds, Bobby Kennedy, Brett Dean, butter, chess, Communism, cricket, death, Django Reinhardt, education, England, finance, Germany, government, Iceland, Israel, King Alfred, King's Lynn, liberal arts, Los Angeles, music, Nelson Evening Mail, opera, Palestine, politics, queens, Rain Men, sailors, Sam Craft, sea-faring, sex, Sikhs, South Benfleet, tattoos, the East India Company, Tierra del Fuego, traffic, Truth, work | Comments (0)