IF, LIKE me, you have read every line of PG Wodehouse’s 90-odd books – at least half a dozen times each in the case of the Jeeves novels – your attention might be piqued, if piqued is the word I seek, by one of the Master’s disciples. His name is Kyril Bonfiglioli. In a trilogy […]
RETURNING to my personal parade of screen beauties which began last week brings me to two movie versions of the 1934 James M Cain novel The Postman Always Rings Twice. The story concerns Cora, a gorgeous blonde who runs a California diner with her much older husband Nick. A young drifter named Frank Chambers drops in for […]
WHO could forget the scene in Dr No when a white-bikini-clad Ursula Andress emerges from the Caribbean watched by Sean Connery as James Bond? I certainly never have, and neither did those who placed it at number one in a poll of the sexiest screen moments. Sadly I’ve never encountered the divine Miss Andress in the flesh, […]
IN the 1990s I would race home from work in the early hours of Saturday to watch a video recording of that night’s Fantasy Football League on BBC2. Irreverent, often filthy and yet full of love for the game, it was the best thing on telly by far. The format was always the same – an intro […]
WHEN I wrote in May about the expression ‘standing around like cheese at fourpence’, I promised a future column on the joys of Lancashire cheese. And here it is. So far as I am aware, Lancashire is the only British variety to have three official designations – creamy, tasty and crumbly – although there are more […]
MY late father, who as I described here was once lowered down a long-drop lavatory to rescue a cat, was also a talented amateur conjuror. Specialising in card tricks, he was an enthusiastic member of the Magic Circle. As a treat for my 12th birthday in June 1967, Dad took me and a school friend named Richard […]
IN common with most folk of a certain age, I remember winters in unheated bedrooms where you would wake to find ice patterns on the inside of the window and wince to put foot to freezing linoleum. By contrast the inside of the bed was toasty warm, thanks to a sheet, thick woollen blankets and […]
TOWARDS the end of 1913, a young Cambridge graduate named Arthur Grimble was nominated to a cadetship in the Colonial Office. This meant he would serve a three-year probation period which, if successful, would lead to his appointment as a permanent officer. The key was to show qualities of leadership. This filled him with dread. […]
A WHILE ago I waxed lyrical about the magnificent market hall in Budapest. A smaller rival to its charms is the Mercado dos Lavradores, a fruit, vegetable, flower and fish market in Funchal, the capital of Madeira. Unfortunately when we visited ten years ago, an enterprising stallholder remembered the ancient Portuguese greengrocer saying which translates as: ‘An Englishman’s […]
WHEN I started out in national newspapers 45 years ago it was still the custom not to publish on Good Friday. That left Maundy Thursday free for journalists and print workers to booze it up on an annual jolly known as the wayzgoose. This began as a treat given by a master printer to his […]
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