Television Review, Evening Standard, July 1982 At around 5.30 yesterday afternoon it occurred to me that, if there were any two people with whom I would not wish to be stuck in a lift, one was John McEnroe and the other Jimmy Connors. At that time Connors was beginning to do his mad axeman act… Continue reading…
Observer Magazine, July 1980 Poor old Elvis couldn’t help it: his eyes glazed over when I started to speak and an expression of strained patience settled across his features. It was the same with James Baldwin and even Georgie Best, while Muhammad Ali solved the problem by steadfastly keeping his eyes closed during the whole… Continue reading…
The Sunday Times, January 1980 David Attenborough has done an awful lot to make copulation respectable during the past quarter of a century. For years now he has been showing us film of all manner of creatures great and small caught in that most intimate of acts, and never a whisper of complaint has there… Continue reading…
The Sunday Times, January 1980 It seems to me that you never meet your heroes on equal terms – not even at tea-time in the Texas Pancake House in Charing Cross Road where Tom Stoppard and I deliberated together over the nutritious merits of a Shiloh as opposed to a Louisiana Lemon and eventually settled… Continue reading…
The Sunday Times Magazine, September 1976 One lunchtime last summer, Michael Apted and I walked into a crowded restaurant together, sat down, and without looking at each other considered the menu. After a few moments he put his menu down, screwed up his face, and dropped his head in his hands. ‘Stephan’s gone,’ he said.… Continue reading…
The Sunday Times Magazine, May 1976 The thing about Ormskirk was the women; they were voluptuous. For 20 years my mother and aunt between them must have clothed more bosoms and more bottoms than any other two persons in the whole town, and I grew up to admire the fulsome forms that carelessly undressed in… Continue reading…
Sam Phillips Plus Johnny Cash, Carl Perkins and Roy Orbison (Radio Times, September 1973) “Until rock and roll music came along the grossest of all racial discrimination in America was in music. You had pop music – which was for a certain type of people; you had country and western music, which was supposedly for… Continue reading…
Evening Standard, February 1973 The singularly most interesting aspect of the development of pop in the last couple of years has had less to do with the music being played than with the presentation of that music. And when it comes to stage acts Bowie is both the best and the most original. Where Mick… Continue reading…
London Evening Standard, July 1972 An interesting new film which has unfortunately been much critically overlooked is now approaching the end of its run at the Brixton Classic. It is The Harder They Come. The choice of such a venue for the first British showing of the movie was no accident, because this is the first… Continue reading…
London Evening Standard, July 1972 A couple of weeks ago the gynaecologist suggested that my wife go into hospital a few days early to have her baby induced, as her ankles were beginning to swell and she was losing weight. Great, she thought. No more messing about waiting. Another couple of days and it’ll be… Continue reading…
