I had Radio 3 on the other day and it was a programme on about Vivaldi. The presenter played a short feature she had recorded in Mantua, which she hoped “captured the sight, sounds and the smells” of his life […]

Are you not mixing him up with the similar wearer of colourful shirts and oversize glasses, Timmy Mallett, who seems to have made a graceful departure from the limelight in this way? I met him, Timmy, a few […]

This an interesting article by James O’Malley, which should be free to read, on what he sees as the benefits of Digital IDs and also on how a lot of the infrastructure for them already exists. He is worth […]

He’s a big fan of Dylan, and I wonder if he got some of his musical style from him. He doesn’t have a great voice and uses a mannered style to make the most of it. He’s not much of a musician but can come up wi […]

The Covid App cost £35 million. It wasn’t introduced by “these clowns” but the Conservative government. I think you are confusing it with the Test and Trace programme, which was allocated that budget, althou […]

But it’s not called that. That may have been a draft idea, but is not its name. Shocking comms, no, shoddy journalism, yes.

It’s not called the Britcard and it’s not a card. I work with a lot of immigrants and am related to some others. I think they will be happy to have something easy to use when renting or buying homes, app […]

I don’t know. I wonder what persuaded Keir Starmer to appoint Shabana Mahmood “a passionate and determined supporter of Palestinian rights” as she says on her website as Lord Chancellor and now Home Secretary. […]

Nicola Sturgeon has also set up a private company to reduce the amount of tax she pays on her non-MSP earnings, such as her book. As Alex Massie amusingly points out in The Times, she has condemned such rascals in […]

That was pleasant, but we must give the genre its correct name of John Lewis Christmas Advert.

Just the other day, when I was at a loose end, I saw a Sister Boniface mystery which, I think unfairly, included a pretty harsh caricature of Biddy Baxter. The series is a spin off of the Mark Williams Father […]

I started taking jazz guitar lessons a few years ago, and I do know the basic differences between the sound of single coil and humbucker pickups and the main effects, but as the music is jazz based, I haven’t r […]

John Lennon played this strange looking guitar, a Sardonyx, on Double Fantasy. Wikipedia tells you about its combination of pickups and so on, which I didn’t really understand. I never really thought of him as […]

There was an article by James Marriott in the Times a few weeks ago which mentioned learning poems.. He is a very interesting and amusing writer, but for a thirty year old, he does seem at times to be sliding into […]

True, but some of his novels have been successfully adapted for TV and film. Beneath all of the wordiness, there are often an interesting story and characters, unfortunately obscured by his style. He does seem […]

The voting age is already 16 for the Scottish Parliament and the Welsh Assembly, and neither use a simple first past the post system. If people are looking for experience of changing the voting age, or […]

My father died in his seventies, but it would have been his 100th birthday a few weeks ago. By coincidence, the daughter of some family friends had her first birthday on the same day, and they sent us some photos. […]

Not a virtuoso necessarily, but someone with practical experience in the line of work, which would help with communication in both directions.

I have always thought of Brian Eno as being along the lines of one of those management consultants who used to be around ten to twenty years ago who an organisation would bring in when they had got to a certain […]

No Archbishop of Canterbury since January (or some might say since 1533). No one seems too bothered about it.