Keeping alive the glorious spirit of 1976
. Think of this iconic 1976 sci-fi movie and the mind becomes inexorably fixed upon a vision of the gaunt, pallid figure with wavy red locks that was David Bowie playing Thomas Jerome Newton, the visitor from another planet come to Earth to find water with which to sate the desperate thirsts of his drought-stricken […]
Continue Reading. Few institutions have aroused fascination and mockery in such equal measure as the Eurovision Song Contest. Staged by the European Broadcasting Union (EBU) since 1956, it is easily the longest-running televised competitive annual musical event. Each year most of the nations of Europe, plus one or two others besides, vie for the prize of […]
Continue ReadingIf you are fortunate enough to have a da Vinci or a Rembrandt hanging in your lobby you are unlikely ever to want for much. But what do you think would be the going rate for a Sexton? Far from being a painter, Sexton Blake of course was a fictional detective. And being a Londoner, […]
Continue ReadingIt was at first slightly deflating when recently I received, for the first time since The Best Year Of Our Lives was published two and a half years ago, a negative review on Amazon.
Continue ReadingEveryone who is at the top of their game these days is referred to as a king or queen of something or other. In the case of Neil Peart, whose sad passing last week confirmed the end of the Rush era, his kingdom was a land where percussive perfection met insightful lyricism of a quality that placed him alongside the very bardest of the bards who have graced popular music in recent decades.
Continue Reading. Terrorist outrages were as much a thing in the 1970s as they are today, but the protagonists and their causes were often different and their method, if crude, was in many respects more audacious and daring. To some extent this was down to the fact that surveillance methods were less well developed and thus […]
Continue ReadingThere are so many things the 1970s will rightly be remembered for – glam rock, tank tops, flares and platforms, big hair, cold wars and cod wars, the fuel crisis, the unburied dead, power cuts, strikes, trades union militancy, the rise and fall of Ziggy Stardust, the Goodies, the long hot summer of 1976 to name but a few. But of all the memories that those of us who are of a certain age refuse to lay to rest, one of the most precious must surely be that of the splendid Lord Toffingham.
Continue ReadingAs a birthday treat to myself I took me along to the O2 Arena in London to see Alice Cooper, 71 years young, performing the London stage of his Ol’ Black Eyes Is Back tour.
Continue Reading. As great sporting rivalries go, they don’t come any more tense or bitter than that which existed between British playboy racing car driver James Hunt and his steely Austrian competitor Niki Lauda. And nowhere did this stark contrast of style and character manifest itself more explosively than in the unforgettable Formula One World Championship […]
Continue Reading. 1976 was an Olympic year, and the choice of Montreal as the host city had, as has so often been the case in more recent years, been to some extent a political decision. It was the Cold War era and the Canadian city had staged its bid in competition with Los Angeles and Moscow. […]
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