Daily Mail, October 6 2011 As summits go it might have been a secret meeting of heads of state. It was the evening of August 27, 1965, and police motorcyclists had been deployed to block any following traffic as three limousines sped west down Sunset Boulevard and into the gated Bel Air millionaire community of… Continue reading…
John Sullivan, who died yesterday of viral pneumonia, aged 64, was the writer who has made us laugh more than any other over the past thirty five years. A clever, lovely man, he used his own working class background to define through television comedy some of the changes that have occurred in British life in… Continue reading…
May 2011 Happiness, it appears, peaks at the age of 74. So says a survey of 21,000 people, quoted in a new book on ageing by Lewis Wolpert anyway – which is something to look forward to. Apparently if I look after myself, keep fit, keep my mind busy, have a positive outlook on life,… Continue reading…
Radio Times, March 29, 2011 It isn’t often that the title of a novel captures the mood of the moment, but author John Braine’s naming of his first novel “Room At the Top” was absolutely timely. Although written in the early Fifties, when it was first published in 1957 Britain was on the very cusp… Continue reading…
11 March 2011 The news was hardly out of his mouth before the knockers and mockers were sniding away this week. “Cliff Richard to record an album with soul singers Percy Sledge, Candi Staton, a Motown songwriter and maybe a couple of rappers! Ha-ha! There’s a laugh from that old Peter Pan of a coffin… Continue reading…
Mail on Sunday January 23 2011 One December afternoon in 1956, Elvis Presley at 21 was cruising in his new Cadillac around Memphis, Tennessee, showing a new girl friend his home town, when he spotted a gathering of cars outside a small, single storey building he knew well. It was 706 Union Avenue, home of… Continue reading…
Daily Mail, January 14, 2011 When, some years ago, the Queen Mother was asked by screenwriter David Seidler whether she would like a film to be made about her late husband’s struggle with his stammer, she replied: “Not in my lifetime”. Even as an old lady, and many years after his death, the memory of… Continue reading…
Daily Telegraph 6.1.11 Love, like youth and sex, can be wasted on the young. Naturally I didn’t think like that when I was young. No young person ever does. For the young, who reinvent the romantic wheel with every first flush of adolescent hormones, love is theirs alone, their beatifying joy and their anguished misery.… Continue reading…
The Lady 6.12.10 It’s early December, short days, Christmas lights, and the radio is playing Beatle records. Do you get the feeling we’ve been here before? We have, every December since the night a mad fan ended John Lennon’s life with five bullets, and, in so doing, turned the witty, provocative and sometimes wilful musician… Continue reading…
Daily Mail, October 25, 2010 Let’s face it, the Rolling Stones are dead. It really is all over now. It hasn’t been officially announced, and probably never will be, so intricate are the business deals that bind the individual members. But the chances of them ever touring or recording together again have to be nil.… Continue reading…
