How Garfield Sobers beat cricket’s ultimate record. Extract 2. This is the second of a number of extracts I shall be publishing in August in the lead up to the 50th anniversary of the day, Saturday, August 30, when Garfield Sobers became the first player in the history of cricket to hit every ball of… Continue reading
How the Proms celebrated overlooked Welsh musical talent Morfydd Owen
On Friday 20 Jul 2018, for only the second time, the music of long-overlooked Welsh composer Morfydd Llwyn Owen was performed at the BBC Proms. The last piece by Morfydd to be performed at the Proms was in September 1917. The composer died, tragically young, shortly afterwards. The piece was the Nocturne, lasting about 15 minutes. It was performed by the BBC… Continue reading →
How Garfield Sobers beat cricket’s ultimate record. Extract 1
This is the first of a number of extracts I shall be publishing in August in the lead up to the 50th anniversary of the day, Saturday, August 30, when Garfield Sobers became the first player in the history of cricket to hit every ball of an over for six. It’s taken from my e-book Sobers six… Continue reading →
Raise a lid to Steinway, the Proms’ greatest performer
The Royal Albert Hall Steinway grand piano is the instrument that anchors so many performances in the Henry Wood Proms. Prodigious, perfectly polished music machine. Steinway may be the best of all pianos. It is certainly the best know. I was part of a press group given a tour of Steinway’s Hamburg factory in 2018. ****… Continue reading →
Butter or margarine? How to spread breakfast’s carbon footprint
Margarine better for global warming potential than butter – new study I wrote the following article in 2016. Since then I came across this study – “Comparative life cycle assessment of margarine and butter consumed in the UK, Germany and France”. It dates from 2010, but was published earlier in 2018. It concludes that margarine… Continue reading →
The new Autostrada del Sole – how the sun might transform motoring in the ’20s
Could Lightyear, a solar power and electric car become the vehicle of choice in the 2020s? How a Dutch start-up is blazing the path towards low emission motoring. In 2010 I wrote about the launch of the first mainstream all-electric car in the UK. The Nissan Leaf has sold well since then, but it and… Continue reading →