I like to come away from the Hay Festival with an idea or two to ponder on. Time was short this year, and even then we made one wrong choice. The estimable John Julius Norwich, with his “Four Princes” seemed a good choice, but on reflection it was no more than a polished but ultimately… Continue reading
Browsing Category Everything else
Ken Loach film I, Daniel Blake “best British film” at Baftas – review
I, Daniel Blake won the best British film category at the Baftas (February 13, 2017). Ken Loach had returned from retirement to record one of the biggest successes of his career. In The Guardian, Peter Bradshaw wrote: “… it has something which is lacking in so many British social-realist film, or films of all kinds…. Continue reading →
Travel writers need to put more emphasis on green tourism
How are we to square our desire to travel to indulgent hotels next to distant exotic beaches, with the imperative to conserve the planet and to hold back climate change? 2017 was, as too easily predicted, the warmest year on record. The Arctic ice cap retreated alarmingly. The Great Barrier Reef suffered a serious episode… Continue reading →
Nissan plans to sell a car to share, not to own outright
Nissan to launch shared-ownership cars. Nissan has come up with a good marketing idea, and it doesn’t involve selling more cars. If you live in the South East, although it could be any urban area these days, you will be familiar with streets clogged with parked cars, with house drives where there are three or more vehicles. How much are… Continue reading →
Free our best friend – time to walk the dog out of pedigree status?
Why should somebody like me, who does not own a dog, who has never owned a dog, be interested in a book with the cover tagline “a must read for all dog lovers”? Predisposed to dismiss it as uninteresting reading, I took a dip inside and quickly concluded that the tagline does the book a… Continue reading →
Stopped at signals – the trains in The Girl on the Train
Paula Hawkins has just published her second novel Into the Water. It will certainly be made into a film, as was her debut thriller The Girl on the Train, which sold 20m worldwide. The movie of that book starred Emily Blunt as the dysfunctional protagonist. My article below, posted in October 2016, explores the way the writer used… Continue reading →