Homage to Wodehouse
AMONG the treasures in my book collection is a slim volume, Homage to PG Wodehouse. This was compiled in 1973, two years before the Master’s death, by Thelma Cazalet-Keir, a former … Continue readingHomage to Wodehouse
A compendium of musical delights by Alan and Margaret Ashworth
AMONG the treasures in my book collection is a slim volume, Homage to PG Wodehouse. This was compiled in 1973, two years before the Master’s death, by Thelma Cazalet-Keir, a former … Continue readingHomage to Wodehouse
I HAVE already waxed lyrical here about Brass, Peter Kay and Father Ted, and think enough has probably been said on the subject of Monty Python, Fawlty Towers, Only Fools and Horses, Dad’s … Continue readingSome comedy gems you might have missed
BACK in 2006, BBC Four started airing a cop show set in the seedy underbelly of Paris. There were eight episodes in that first series, shown two at a time … Continue readingThe Spiral phenomenon
WHEN I started out as a reporter on the Burnley Evening Star, the news editor was an irascible cove named Ray Horsfield, renowned for furious high-volume telephone conversations with his wife … Continue readingNewshound savaged by dogs
AT the beginning of 1968, teatime television was turned on its head by a comedy phenomenon which had hordes of schoolchildren, myself included, racing home desperate not to miss a … Continue readingMonty Python’s Dad
FOLLOWING my parade of screen lovelies chronicled here and here, this is a selection of actresses suggested by you, the readers. First we visit The Avengers, the slightly camp, always entertaining British espionage series which … Continue readingThe fairest of them all? Part 3
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 … Continue readingWodehouse, plus sex and violence
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 … Continue readingThe fairest of them all? Part 2
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 … Continue readingWho is the fairest of them all?
MY Uncle Tom was a gifted raconteur, talented pianist and all-round good egg. He was also, to my knowledge, the only former public schoolboy and university graduate to make a … Continue readingA Bachelor of Hauling Coal