A compendium of musical delights by Alan and Margaret Ashworth
AM I alone in finding this year’s winning one-liner at the Edinburgh Fringe distasteful? Headlined by the BBC and sundry papers as a joke about vegetables, it runs: ‘I keep randomly shouting … Continue readingWhen is a disability joke OK? When it’s told by a Leftie
COULD anything more clearly illuminate the self-centredness of the BBC’s apparatchiks than this pensée from Radio 4 Today host Justin Webb in yesterday’s i newspaper: ‘I have been walking in Camberwell in South … Continue readingThe authentic voice of the BBC
WHILE I was wandering around YouTube for yesterday’s Midweek Hymn, I discovered the largest fully playable musical instrument in the world, the Wanamaker Grand Court Organ, and I thought it … Continue readingThe Mighty Wanamaker
Reach for the Sky: The life story of Douglas Bader by Paul Brickhill; Cassell Military Paperbacks, and available secondhand I HAVE read this book several times but I did not … Continue readingThey don’t make men like this any more
LIKE most traditions, the origin of Boxing Day is unclear. The prevalent theory is that the day after Christmas used to be when tradesmen and servants received a ‘Christmas box’ … Continue readingWhy do we call it Boxing Day?
ROAMING around YouTube for my series on Christmas carols, I came across the charming custom of the choral scholars at King’s College, Cambridge, serenading those in the queue for the … Continue readingA Christmas serenade
WHEN I was at junior school in the 1950s, a highlight of the week was when we gathered in the hall and waited for a teacher to turn on the … Continue readingA lament for when we Sang Together
LAURA Perrins wrote on TCW on Monday about the appalling behaviour of Serena Williams while she was losing the final of US Open tennis championships to a much younger opponent. … Continue readingCheats never prosper? In tennis they do
I AM a great fan of Jed Mercurio, who created the brilliant police corruption series Line of Duty as well as the seriously under-rated hospital drama Critical. So I was … Continue readingWimmin, wimmin everywhere
Sold for a Farthing by Clare Kipps (available second-hand) THIS is the story of a foundling sparrow, but it is more than that: it tells of an England so far … Continue readingThe song of the sparrow