Monday 25 February 2008

Worth staying in for


This Wednesday, BBC2, 9.50pm: Wonderland: The 92-Year-Old Danger Junkie, a portrait of the late Ron Cunningham, aka The Great Omani.

The Big Freeze

Edinburgh, yesterday, 3.30pm: a "flash mob" spends five minutes silent and motionless outside the National Gallery (details here):

Last day at work

On his 96th birthday, two weeks before his death, Sir John Gielgud concluded his 76-year movie career by appearing in Catastrophe, a six-minute play by Samuel Beckett, with Harold Pinter and Rebecca Pidgeon, under the direction of David Mamet:

Assassinating reputations


Dominic Lawson on the Diana inquest.

(More about Lord Foulkes here.)

Guns and scalpels



A nasty footnote to Oxford history: the 1938 plot to kidnap Lord Nuffield.

My spellchecker hates them



If yours does too, fight back with the Semicolon Appreciation Society.

Saturday 23 February 2008

Winston's bohemian girl

Four minutes with the superb First Lady of the Glastonbury Festival, Arabella Churchill, who sadly died in December:

Very much alive




Sir Brian Urquhart is 89 next week and still not short of fire-power - as his review of John Bolton's Surrender Is Not an Option shows.

Mungo mourns



Goodbye to Archie Hind, author of Glasgow classic The Dear Green Place. Alasdair Gray pays tribute.

Friday 22 February 2008

Bit late

But I only just found it:

Wednesday 20 February 2008

Ultimate Stoic



Emily Perry, better known as Madge Allsop, the much-enduring bridesmaid of Dame Edna Everage, dies at 100.


She made a spirited appearance in this 2007 article on Brinsworth House, the entertainment industry retirement home.

And here she is in all her glory:



Independent / Telegraph / Times

Wayne hits the road



A rumpus on the Guardian website gives rise to a memorable parody.

More here.

Tuesday 19 February 2008

Fixin' to die


Don't sing the blues before you know the rules.

Monday 18 February 2008

By A Waterfall

The Bonzo Dog Band enjoying themselves in the Sixties, with exquisite frontman Vivian Stanshall:

You've been a lovely audience, mein Führer


The 104-year-old cabaret singer with a dark past.

Stuff White People Like




We're weird.

Friday 15 February 2008

Method trumps message


A thoughtful spin doctor reflects on Rowan Williams's recent travails.

Sunday 10 February 2008

Heroin Galore

The Fast Show updates Compton Mackenzie:

Latest buzz


What if Britain loses its bees?

Galloway on Paxman



It's WAR.

Ignoring all their hard work


At A-level results time, the Warden of New College, Oxford, fired a broadside.

Wot, no bassoon?

William Shatner performs Pulp's "Common People", assisted by Joe Jackson and Ben Folds:



Hat tip: Froog. And "Shatner's bassoon" gets 7,900 hits on Google…

Portraits of desolation


Shaun O'Boyle's Modern Ruins.

Vanishing uglies


Non-cute endangered species.

Willie's back!


One of my all-time favourite bloggers returns to us* after a two-year silence.

Try this critique of jury trial as a taster. Or would you prefer Andy Kershaw?

 

* Three months ago, but I've only just noticed. Oops.

Tuesday 5 February 2008

Awkwardness at the Palace

Miriam Margolyes runs foul of the Queen (4 minutes):

Larger than life



Independent and Times obituarists make the most of wine merchant Bill Baker.

Aids cure "hushed up"


Nonsense latest?

Sunday 3 February 2008

Spot on


Brilliant parodies of British press commentators - Toynbee, Rees-Mogg, Gove, Fisk, Finkelstein…

Long gone

Forty silent seconds with the last Tasmanian Tiger (died 1936):

Oxford to Belmarsh


The sad story of the troubled writer who tried to hire a hitman.

Suspicious fellow


Guido Fawkes, the blogger who brought down Hain, on politicians - and his own beliefs.

Saturday 2 February 2008