Innholdsfortegnelse for Spring 2025 i The Oldie

In 1970, I was writing my first regular column for the Manchester Evening News: 'Gyles Brandreth for the Young in Heart – Every Tuesday'. The newspaper's editor, Brian Redhead, advised me, 'If you have an interesting name to drop, put it in at the top of your piece. Otherwise, you may find you've lost your readers before they get to it.' So. When I was having lunch with Bill Nighy the other day, he told a theatre story I hadn't heard before and it made me laugh out loud. Years ago, at the National Theatre, word got round that the director Michael Rudman was planning a new production of Waiting for Godot. An ambitious young actor, seeing Rudman in the corridor one day, Nighy said to him, 'Michael, I want…

WHAT IS the antisocial century? The antisocial century is what we're living in now. Humans have passed through the era of the tribe, the kingdom and the nation state. We have moved beyond communities and collectives, parties and unions. Partners, colleagues, friends, lovers … these too are beginning to seem a bit old hat. What we would rather do now is eat takeaways on our own, looking at our phones, wearing a T-shirt that says, 'F*** Off'. Welcome to the antisocial century. The term was coined by Derek Thompson in a cover story for the Atlantic magazine which hit a nerve with readers. 'Self-imposed solitude might just be the most important social fact of the 21st century in America,' was the depressing conclusion. The writer visited a formerly buzzing Mexican…

Last December, I retired from 38 years in the City. And in January, I went to clown school. It seemed the natural choice: to move from the play of high finance to the serious play of clowning. École Philippe Gaulier, in Étampes, 25 miles south-west of Paris, was recommended to me as a sometimes brutal but transformative experience. The school, founded in 1980, had for a while been based in London. So there was French leadership, with all the courses held in English. It has helped Sacha Baron Cohen, Helena Bonham Carter and Emma Thompson develop their craft as actors – and I wanted to release my own clown. In the City, I'd been restricted to performing new business pitches and, when brave, imitating colleagues. My lodestar was the late…

Shouldn't we be making more fuss about the 200th anniversary of the railway, which falls in September? In 1825, the Stockton and Darlington launched the start of rail travel, which brought the world a social revolution – and a transport revolution. Not everyone welcomed the invention of the train. Tolstoy thought it the work of the devil – perhaps related to poor Anna Karenina's suicide. The French historian Jacques Barzun claims the well-known painting by William Frith, The Railway Station (1862), alluded to the 'promiscuity' of rail travel, shocking Victorians. And Zola's The Human Beast showed the tough working conditions of train drivers, when the locomotives were under steam. Monet's painting Gare Saint-Lazare (1877) displayed the more ethereal aspect of the railway station. And rail brought about some wonderful architecture…

Being a great beauty for three or more decades can have its drawbacks. Let's say you start being a beauty at 15 and carry on till 48. By 48, you have got used to being swooned over and getting your way, entirely because of your looks. No one could blame you for not having put much work into your personality as you went along. And then you notice you have started to go off – and you wrongly attribute men's failure to enthuse to the fact that you now have crêpy arms. It's nothing to do with your arms. Contrast two current widows from my own network. The first widow is Cynthia, so celebrated a beauty in younger life that jaws would drop open and cars almost crash when she…

My mother, Lindy Runcie, liked clarity, even if her own stories proved to be all detail and no narrative. She might launch into an anecdote featuring a man called Bert but then jazz-improvise her account so that it featured two or three other people called Bert, and it was only when she got to the end that you realised one of these Berts was a dog. Attending cultural events often involved going through the plot in advance so that she could be clear about the narrative and concentrate on the performance. This was particularly important when visiting the Royal Ballet because, as George Balanchine observed, there is no dance move that says, 'This is my mother-in-law.' Modern interpretations could confuse her ('Why are they all dressed the same? You can't tell…

The King attended the memorial service for General Sir Michael Jackson, former Chief of the General Staff, at the Royal Memorial Chapel, Royal Military Academy Sandhurst. The Duke of Kent and the Duke and Duchess of Gloucester also attended. The Chaplain General, the Rev Canon Michael D Parker KHC CF, took the service. A tribute from the King, Colonel-in-Chief of the Parachute Regiment, Jackson's regiment, was read by Lieutenant General Sir Hew Pike: 'How much he was respected by the whole Army and indeed the whole nation. He was a true “soldiers' soldier”, of indomitable spirit.' The address was given by Rev Dr Colin Heber-Percy (whose new book is reviewed on page 57), who gave Holy Communion to Sir Mike in his hospice. Quoting Rousseau, Dr Heber-Percy said, '“What makes…

Historians see dead people. Most of the time, history isn't about death. It's about past lives. But death, being even more common than taxes, makes a good subject for history. How did our predecessors approach death? How did their attitudes change – to everything from funeral rites to mourning, memorialising and medicalising death – or not change, over time? No Ordinary Deaths, a new book by Molly Conisbee, a fellow at the Centre for Death and Society (a new one on me) at the University of Bath, illuminates British experiences of death since medieval times. The book sets itself the difficult task of pursuing the last days of those who died as they had lived, in obscurity. We might think of Thomas Gray's vision of 'some mute, inglorious Milton' or…

Affairs: True Stories of Love, Lies, Hope and Desire By Juliet Rosenfeld Bluebird £20 Reading a bright red book with the title AFFAIRS blazoned on the cover brought me some quizzical stares on the London Underground this week. However, this book, gripping though it is, is not a salacious account of the excitement on the one hand, or devastation on the other, involved in having an affair. Instead, it's a deeply examined and insightful account, from a clinical psychotherapist, of the secrets, lies and motivations involved in affairs. One in five people will have an affair at some point in their lives. Juliet Rosenfeld, who specialises in couples therapy, understands the difficulties so many people encounter in long-term relationships. She believes it is important to try to understand such a…

Men of a Certain Age: My Encounters with Rock Royalty By Kate Mossman Nine Eight Books £22 It isn't unfair to say there is something eccentric about Kate Mossman. It would have escaped my notice, were it not that, a few years ago, she wrote a piece for the New Statesman about how she refused to cook. Instead, she survived on various kinds of junk food she bracketed under the general term 'hot items'. 'When I say I don't know how to cook,' she wrote, 'I mean I don't know how to warm things up either.' The article went a bit viral, and I recall it vividly, even though it was written nearly 13 years ago. Once you get over the shock of its premise, it's a delight. It turns…

THE LAST LAUGH Touring nationwide, until 23rd August 'Analysing comedy is like dissecting a frog,' said the late, great comedian (and great friend of The Oldie) Barry Cryer, who would have been 90 on 23rd March. 'Nobody laughs and the frog dies.' This funny, poignant play refutes Cryer's shrewd maxim. It's full of laughs and its analysis of comedy is profound. We're backstage at a West End theatre, in a typically shabby dressing room – hat tip to designer Lee Newby for his meticulously realistic set. Tommy Cooper is in his vest and pants – not a pretty sight – preparing for tonight's show and downing a few stiff whiskies while he's at it. He's joined by Eric Morecambe and Bob Monkhouse, who'll be sharing the bill with him this…

SILENT NIGHTS I have been battling with the temptation to write about this since the reopening of restaurants in May 2021. The blight gets worse and worse, and it's assuming pandemic proportions. I am not talking about the ludicrously inflated price of wine, nor the rising prevalence of round-backed chairs from which all jackets are bound to plummet to the ground. I could forgive the rogues for both if they allowed me sanctuary from the clamour of the world – but they won't. Last Saturday, I took the Midwich Cuckoo – don't look at the eyes! – out for her birthday dinner at her favourite local restaurant, Ploussard, in Clapham. Their website was full of their love of authentic French food and the romance of the venue. What they didn't…

EV OR NOT EV? A friend is considering taking the plunge into EV (electric vehicle) ownership. Actually, she thinks more of a toe in the water than total immersion, wanting a cheap used EV to see how she likes it before more serious investment. What should she buy? First, she should buy something whose real-world range is about a fifth greater than her normal daily driving. Like most private car owners, she averages 20-30 miles a day or fewer. Secondly, she should check battery life, either from the dashboard read-out, which not all EVs have, or by buying from a dealer who provides a battery health check. Thirdly, she should look at everything she would normally look at when buying an ICE (internal combustion engine) car – body, paintwork, panel…

Gabriel Chagas from Rio de Janeiro is now in his ninth decade, and his bridge remains as sparking as it ever was. Tony Forrester and I used to spar against him and the late Marcelo Branco back in the early 1990s – the key back then (as now) was not to let his quick tempo jostle us out of our comfort zone; nor to let his jovial manner lure us into a false sense of security. Chagas was a member of the winning Brazilian team at the World Bridge Games (formerly the Olympiad) back in 1976, and last autumn was trying to win it again (as a Senior) in Buenos Aires. He didn't quite manage it – but out-techniqued most declarers on this month's deal from the event. Plan the…

Issue 71 Spring 205 Not forgetting important titles recently reviewed in The Oldie Her Lotus Year: China, the Roaring Twenties and the Making of Wallis Simpson, by Paul French Spring is the Only Season: How It Works, What It Does and Why It Matters, by Simon Barnes Constellations and Consolations, by Sarah Sands Ira Gershwin: A Life in Words, by Michael Owen Our Evenings, by Alan Hollinghurst Dickens the Enchanter, by Peter Conrad The Hohenzollerns and the Nazis: A History of Collaboration, by Stephen Malin Get Carmen: In Court with George Carmen QC, Britain's Most Feared Lawyer, by Karen Phillipps Hope: The Autobiography, by Pope Francis The Madness of Courage: The Exceptional Achievements of Gilbert Insall, by Tony Insall Story of a Murder, by Hallie Rubenhold Empty Wigs, by Jonathan…

THE BOOKSHOP, THE DRAPER, THE CANDLESTICK MAKER A HISTORY OF THE HIGH STREET ANNIE GRAY Profile, 416pp, £22 Gillian Tindall enthused in the Literary Review about Gray's book: 'Her account of the gradual rise of consumption from the later Middle Ages to the present day is masterly' – though she thought that perhaps too many cities were included. 'The first real shophouses,' she went on, 'with the front downstairs room intended for selling, seem to have been built in Bath. With them came the first purpose-made display windows. Yet well into the 18th century, buildings in cities had no street numbers. Places of purchase were identified by a multitude of hanging signs — finally banned as a nuisance in London in 1762.' In the Times, Melanie Reid believed this 'rich,…

GET IN THE INSIDE STORY OF LABOUR UNDER STARMER PATRICK MAGUIRE AND GABRIEL POGRUND Bodley Head, 480pp, £25 OUT HOW BREXIT GOT DONE AND THE TORIES WERE UNDONE TIM SHIPMAN William Collins, 944pp, £30 Two deeply reported new books about recent politics served Westminster watchers a series of toothsome little scoops. Get In charts Starmer's rise to Number 10, thrusting his strategist Morgan McSweeney into the spotlight. The Observer's Andrew Rawnsley, found it the 'compelling story' of how 'one intensely motivated man grabbed control of a broken party, eviscerated its left and ruthlessly reforged Labour into a power-hungry machine'. McSweeney emerges as 'one of the most consequential figures in contemporary politics', Starmer as an unwitting 'pawn in a chess game': 'McSweeney should try to keep this book away from the…

John Standing (p14) is one of our finest actors. He was in The Great Escaper (2023) with Michael Caine. He and his mother-in-law, Nanette Newman, both 90, are our Oldie In-Laws of the Year. Candida Crewe (p21) has written six novels and one work of non-fiction, as well as articles and columns for the Times, Guardian, Telegraph, Spectator and many more, for nearly 50 years. Simon Williams (p48) played Major Bellamy in Upstairs, Downstairs. He and his wife, Lucy Fleming, play her parents, Peter Fleming and Celia Johnson, in Posting Letters to the Moon. Lady Antonia Fraser (p53) wrote Mary, Queen of Scots (1969). She published her first book, King Arthur and the Knights of the Round Table, in 1954. She wrote Caroline Lamb: A Free Spirit in 2023.…

Even by the bewilderingly inadequate standards of this page, this is a pitiful way to begin – but I am not remotely confident of being able to finish this piece. Sackably unprofessional though the admission is, some topics are so distressing that contemplating them can induce a form of writerly coma. But let's crack on before the paralysis strikes, and ask this. What can be done for Alexander Armstrong? While this versatile entertainer is revered for his comedic partnership with Ben Miller and the rich bass baritone that gave him two top-ten albums, it's as the presenter of Pointless, the BBC1 teatime quiz, that he is most familiar these days. The show's USP is that contestants must give obscure answers that few of those previously surveyed, and preferably none, came…

'The world's smallest umbrella just got smaller!' proclaimed the headline in the catalogue. I read this with excitement back in the late 1980s, when every newspaper seemed to have at least one catalogue of unlikely items inserted among its pages. Why anyone would want to buy a tiny umbrella was puzzling, but it was written in a captivating manner. Like many readers, I found myself lured into reading these catalogues, and even held a sneaking admiration for the copywriters who promoted so many bizarre items. They loved to pose questions that were never answered, implying an impossible level of research. 'Is this the world's most versatile, folding, lightweight wheelbarrow?' blazed the headline in one edition. I rang up the catalogue company to ask what else it did, to the bafflement…

The sky at night made the news on 28th February, when all the other seven planets were visible at once. It reminded me of Samuel Taylor Coleridge and his brutal schooling at Christ's Hospital in the 1780s. The headmaster, James Bowyer, flogged his pupils mercilessly. He threw a copy of Homer at one boy so hard that it knocked his tooth out. To escape these miseries, 16-year-old Sam would climb out of a window at night, lie on the lead roof and look upwards. He later wrote: 'At eve, sky-gazing in “ecstatic fit” (Alas! For cloister'd in a City School, The sky was all I knew of beautiful.)' We town mice cloister'd in the city know how the poet feels. Life is spent on pavements, on roads and in underpasses.…

Hope for the best; plan for the worst. Or so they say. In my family, we never plan for the worst. Instead, we're all just hoping for the best. Trauma is always tomorrow. We brush everything under the carpet. And so we now have in the Clarke household two signs that Trauma Delayed has turned up, marked 'Today'. First trauma. In the early 1960s, a young civilian RAF secretary with Golden Age Hollywood aspirations shared an airbase lift with a Buddy Holly lookalike of a corporal. I don't suppose they sussed that, 64 years later, the typing-pool temptress would be declaring, 'Sunday is panty-liner day.' Or that she'd be converting her living room into an industrial laundry. Second trauma. Upstairs, a hole, lurking under a never lifted carpet, has become…

Western Australia is heaven: perfect weather, glorious countryside, white beaches and great restaurants. But when we announced a trip to the mining town of Kalgoorlie, everyone expressed bafflement, even horror. Why? It's miles. It's Outback. You're mad. No, we weren't. The skies, gum forests, vast wheatfields, cattle ranches, bush, silent and empty, were beautiful. Kalgoorlie's open mine – a vast hole in the ground half a mile deep, a mile wide and two miles long – was fascinating. From above, the diggers look like ants, diligently servicing super-ants (dump trucks), each taking three loads to fill. Close up, both trucks and diggers prove to be the biggest in the world, four times the height – and width – of a man, with a truck tyre weighing five tons and costing…

Language never stands still. Sometimes, it shifts imperceptibly, though innovation can be quite abrupt – as with Americanisms which quietly sneak in, and then take over absolutely: 'Can I get a coffee?'; 'You guys'; 'I'm good' – all ghastly, of course. Rather more interesting are the British phrases, utterances, idioms and expressions that used to be ubiquitous – now utterly gone. • Penny for the guy! No children beg in the street any more – if they did, it would be for a tenner, minimum. Just as no scout will be in a hurry to offer his services for a… • Bob a job. • A Mars a day helps you work, rest and play. This wouldn't have a hope. Nor would… • Guinness is good for you! As for……

Natural reticence or modesty discourages me from bringing public attention to my own ailments. But it is only human to find papers in medical journals that are of personal interest. So my eye was caught by a trial of heated gloves in the alleviation of osteoarthritis of the hands, reported recently in the British Medical Journal. Such osteoarthritis is prevalent. According to the introduction of the article in the BMJ, 16 per cent of women between the ages of 40 and 84 suffer from it, and 8 per cent of men. Since the prevalence rises greatly with age, we may assume the figure for the old is greatly in excess of these figures. In my case, the proximal joints of my index and middle fingers are deformed. Both pain (or,…

It's a great advantage not to drink among hard-drinking people. F Scott Fitzgerald in The Great Gatsby, published 100 years ago, on 10th April 1925 Thousands have lived without love; not one without water. W H Auden Smell is a potent wizard that transports you across thousands of miles and all the years you have lived. Helen Keller It is a bit embarrassing to have been concerned with the human problem all one's life and find at the end that one has no more to offer by way of advice than 'Try to be a little kinder.' Aldous Huxley Eros will have naked bodies; friendship naked personalities. CS Lewis There's a difference between solitude and loneliness. Maggie Smith There is in true beauty, as in courage, something which narrow souls…

My father was the actor Hugh Williams (1904-69), a pre-war matinée idol in David Copperfield (1935) and Wuthering Heights (1939). After the war, he was declared bankrupt. When this was printed in the Daily Express, the clipping was pinned on the school noticeboard. Underneath, someone had scribbled, 'So Williams minor will be leaving at Easter!' One of the first actors to slip some money into our family coffers was the up-and-coming Richard Burton. My father's fortunes recovered, he took to writing and starring in drawing-room comedies. He and RB were not close friends, but my father never forgot the kindness and would go misty-eyed watching his subsequent success. I grew up understanding that actors were a close-knit fraternity, with its HQ at the Garrick Club. I met Richard Burton only…

I can't help writing my last Oldie column on the – to me – ever-exciting topic of Myself and History. Naturally, the way we write and what we write are heavily influenced by our personal circumstances. You try to suppress those feelings but, as with any work of art, you find it impossible. The political situation in early 1970s England, when I was writing a certain chapter in Cromwell, Our Chief of Men (1973) – Oliver Cromwell's life – was such that inevitably it got reflected in my book. I remember throwing the Daily Telegraph across the room and shouting, 'Take that, Old Noll [Cromwell's nickname],' before calmer counsels prevailed. The whole question of personal involvement and how much it warps historical judgements is a fascinating one. I fell in…

Lost in the Forest By Colin Heber-Percy Gaia £18.99 Lost in the Forest by the Rev Colin Heber-Percy defies classification. It consists of many parts: a form of diary, a searching for the unknown, a woodland journey of discovery and a personal exploration of not belonging. All the parts are good. He is the vicar of Burbage, Ham, Shalbourne and Buttermere in the Savernake Forest. This is not a sequel to his book, Tales of a Country Parish, but a development. It's a more serious and pensive book, though it has in common with its predecessor good humour and the understated fact of Heber-Percy's remarkable pastoral qualities. They come from his being, as he tells us, woven into the fabric of the rural communities that he serves. That he is…

What is my bedside radio tuned to Radio 4 for? To induce gloom and rage, first thing in the morning? It often seems that way. Number of neurodivergent people on PIPs increased by 50 per cent; self-diagnosed sickness benefits 'unsustainable', prisons overflowing. I vividly recall Norma Major saying, 'We have a radio next to the Teasmade in the bedroom, and switch on Today when we have our tea'. So cosy. Now so masochistic. No wonder we are propelled – daily invited by Radio 4 – to Radio 3, with Petroc Trelawney and Georgia Mann, to be soothed – or diverted into a bit of unlikely bopping by The King's Music Room, on Apple, where Al Bowlly meets My Boy Lollipop. Playlists are the thing, with lots of meditation and soundscapes…

POP'S PETER PANS My interview with Michael Jackson was the last he ever did. The 1982 album he was promoting, Thriller, was so successful he never needed the press again. He was 24, an international star since the age of six. And what did he want to talk about? The record, the songs, the videos? Not so much. Front of mind was his Neverland Ranch in Santa Barbara, a cross between a fairground and a petting zoo, where he watched ET repeatedly in his private cinema and had a giant mechanical Pirates of the Caribbean display, complete with puffing cannons. If you'd given a six-year-old unlimited cash, this is what they might have spent it on, a childhood fantasy full of llamas, dodgems, chimpanzees, carousels and endless machines making candyfloss.…

LEMONS 'Lemon tree very pretty, and the lemon flower is sweet…' So sang Trini Lopez, and others, in the 1960s. The trees are indeed pretty, with glossy, dark evergreen leaves and white flowers which have a heady scent. Lemons are associated in most minds with the southern Mediterranean, but with care and patience it is possible to grow them in Britain. Frost-free conditions are essential, and the trees are best-grown in a large terracotta pot or wooden tub, which can be moved from the garden into an unheated greenhouse or conservatory in winter. As the trees need humidity to thrive, regular misting is advisable, but they should not be placed in a centrally heated space. Of the citrus fruit, lemons are the most tolerant of cold. During summer months, the…

DIFFICULT DRINKS Winemakers do not have an easy life, especially those in regions with unpredictable climates. A late frost can wipe out a vineyard overnight. A hailstorm can do the same in a couple of minutes. And there are countless diseases to which grapes are prone. Assuming, though, that they end up with plenty of healthy fruit in the winery, the process is relatively simple. Turning grape juice into wine simply requires sugar and yeast. Ripe grapes are bursting with the former and covered in the latter. Cider-makers are similarly fortunate. Some alcoholic drinks require rather more ingenuity. I was reminded of this recently at a toddy shop in the southern Indian state of Kerala. Toddy is made from the sap of various palm trees and requires a nimble 'toddy-tapper'…

Software is getting worse, just as computers are getting better. The paradox is that hardware, the tangible stuff, has undoubtedly improved. It's faster, more reliable and cheaper. But software has become less easy to use, and more expensive. I was expecting the opposite – surely that would be the natural development. I thought software would go the way of the kettle; we buy one and it does its job until it dies. I was wrong. Certainly, the hardware doesn't alter. But the software that makes it work changes all the time. What sits on your desk now is a very different beast from the thing you bought, even if superficially it is identical. Your kettle, on the other hand, remains stubbornly unchanged. Webwatch For my latest tips and free newsletter,…

Is there anything you can't leave home without? A book. And a sarong, which I wear at home in the evening. Is there something you really miss? I miss my wife and just being at home, but mostly I find I'm absorbed in the story when I'm away. What are your memories of Nigeria? I started life in Nigeria, where my father worked; then Sierra Leone, Malta, which I do remember, Switzerland and then Ghana. I've been back to Nigeria, and the BBC driver asked if I'd been there before and I said, 'I was born here.' He was so excited he rang up his girlfriend and said, 'I've got a whitey in the car born in Lagos.' What was it like coming to school in England? Completely miserable for…

IN COMPETITION No 317 you were invited to write a poem called Teeth. You chomped away with a will. Michael Turner questioned the going rate for the Tooth Fairy, concluding, 'Grit your teeth and pay it./ Best not to make a fuss./ We soon will pay our dentists more/ To take our teeth from us.' Finlay Campbell, praising the edentulous earthworm, suggested that 'Perhaps mankind, in a charitable social venture,/ Could help earthworms in their subterranean mission,/ Assist evolution by fitting earthworms with dentition.' Con Connell contemplated the cogs of the mind. Anna Meanock was good on the violence of dental surgery. Peter Jarvis celebrated the teeth of a saw. Commiserations to them and to Louise Buckley, Allan Clews, Ann Hilton, David Dixon, Peter Sheldon, John S Highnam, Ian Nalder,…

As our delightful cover by Bob Wilson declares, spring, with its joyful romantic essence, is upon us. Sparkly, balmy days have drawn many of us out of hibernation into the sunshine, often with a book in hand. Accordingly, our Spring Edition is packed with irresistible new books to savour under a tree as the days lengthen and warm. Memoirs include those by Angela Merkel reflecting on her premiership, Cher giving us glimpses of her gloriously rackety life and Bill Gates delivering a 'lament for a bygone America'. There are biographies of a rich assortment of people from Dorothy Parker and Marie Curie to the Brothers Grimm, while history books range from Nazi Germany and Hungary to Leningrad, the Vatican and Ancient Rome. Anne Tyler fans can find her new Baltimore…

THE LAST DAYS OF BUDAPEST SPIES, NAZIS, RESCUERS AND RESISTANCE, 1940-45 ADAM LEBOR Head of Zeus, 512pp, £27.99 Seldom are plaudits so fulsome. In the Times, Gerard DeGroot pronounced himself 'frankly, in awe' of LeBor's achievement. All human life appeared in this 'parable of what happens when a city learns to hate'; the result 'a pointillist painting, tiny dots of experience drawn together into a great canvas of war', whose creator had juggled 'numerous stories with astounding agility, constructing an engrossing narrative without ever losing his way'. Artists, aristocrats, boy-soldiers, nightclub-dancers, psychotic sadists from the Arrow Cross party: all were enlisted into explaining the moral decline of Hungary and its fun-loving capital between Horthy's assumption of power in the 1920s and the Nazis' takeover and subsequent annihilation in 1944. Once…

CREATOR OF NIGHTMARES HENRY FUSELI'S ART AND LIFE CHRISTOPHER BAKER Reaktion Books, 224pp, £30 Some artists are so well known for a single masterpiece that the image eclipses their whole reputation. Such is the case with Fuseli's The Nightmare, argues Christopher Baker, art historian, editor and author of Creator of Nightmares: “Many people would be able to summon up in their mind's eye an image of the painting … but few could plot the life and career of its extraordinary creator.” Fuseli was original, learned and well-connected, wrote Wall Street Journal's Maxwell Carter, and his commentary on Rousseau was praised in an unsigned review as the work of as 'a gentleman, a scholar, a philosopher, a genius and a man of wit… Naturally, the reviewer was Fuseli.' It was Joshua…

FEARLESS AND FREE JOSEPHINE BAKER Vintage Classics, 288pp, £18.99 Translated into English for the first time by Anam Zafar and Sophie Lewis, Fearless and Free is drawn from conversations that Baker had with French writer Marcel Sauvage. They started in 1926, at the wild height of her celebrity in Paris's nightclubs and revue bars and ended 20 years later when she was both an esteemed civil rights campaigner and a holder of the Croix de Guerre and Légion d'Honneur for her wartime work with the Resistance. Baker talked about everything, from her dirt-poor childhood in Missouri to her manifestation as the very embodiment of the Jazz Age. 'She exudes love and life on the page. And that voice!' raved a reviewer in the Guardian. 'Her younger one, bright, witty, effervescent,…

Man threatened with jail after envelope blows away i Cat breaks into Premier Inn hotel to spend night on couple's bed Somerset County Gazette Classic car show is not set to return this year East Anglia Daily Times £15 for published contributions NEW! Tune into Radio Oldie Every Tuesday, you can find the latest weekly interview by Harry Mount or Charlotte Metcalf with some of our Oldie friends, such as Stephen Fry, Craig Brown and A N Wilson. And we release three more podcasts on op of the Pods, our selection of the best podcasts and comedy clips on the internet. Just sign up for the newsletter on the homepage of the website. Sign up to our weekly e-newsletter…

WHAT WAS Spotlight? In 2017, Spotlight printed its final casting directory, ending a 90-year tradition. These were books not for the public but for Wardour Street film-makers, directors of repertory companies and, latterly, TV producers. By the end of the 1940s, a full-page ad cost an actor or their agent £25 a year. In the early 1960s, Spotlight had records of over 17,800 performers and answered over 200 enquiries a day. Collecting old copies is not a cheap pastime, and the average volume is the size of a GPO telephone book, but they are irresistible to any devotee of British cinema – I now own 15 issues. One attraction is how some actors established their personae early on in their screen careers. The May 1949 issue has a beady-eyed Donald…

At the epicentre of 1920s New York stood the revered Algonquin Round Table – a loose group of gifted friends who met at the same hotel for lunch from Monday to Friday for ten years. New York nursed a heady addiction for newspapers in those days. There were 19 daily papers in Manhattan and each member of the coterie had a readership in the hundreds of thousands. Planet-size highly combative egos abounded at the Algonquin. But one unassuming member of the group never had a mean word to say about anyone – the gentle genius Robert Benchley (1889-1945), who died 80 years ago, aged 56. He cut a charismatic, kindly figure in a crowd famed for their cruel jibes and snide put-downs. He was an internationally recognised humorist in his…

Kingsley Amis once said how miserable he was on a trip to America. And then, one day, he found a bar with exactly his usual sort of drink, with all the right ingredients. He started enjoying himself at last. Then he realised why – he was getting as close as he could to being back home. I recognise the sentiment. The older I get, the more of a homebird I want to be when away. I love going to stay with friends in Britain or abroad – and when I do, I take steps to ensure familiar habits prevail. I pack all the clobber I need to make my homemade cappuccino just the way I like it, and steel myself at breakfast for the derision I invariably – not unreasonably…

The obliqueness – the sheer, understated character – of the New Testament accounts of the Resurrection makes them powerfully disturbing. True, Matthew's Gospel tells us that when Jesus died, the tombs of Jerusalem opened and the holy dead arose, like characters in a canvas by Stanley Spencer (Matthew 27:52). Matthew also has an earthquake occurring at the time of the Resurrection of Christ (Matthew 28:2). But you would expect the other Gospels to have much more of this sort of thing, especially since they were written decades after the events described. There had been plenty of time for a tall story to grow. Instead, we watch a tall story shrinking to understatement. The oldest of the Gospels, Mark, ends with women going to the tomb, and finding it empty. They…

I didn't mean to go to see a matinée performance of Mad About the Boy, the fourth instalment of the Bridget Jones film series. It was a misunderstanding. My sister had come to stay and Mary, wanting to give her a treat, had booked three seats in our luxurious local cinema, weirdly assuming I would want to come too. My sister needed a treat because, like me, she suffers from seasonal affective disorder – in her case, coupled with perennial rhinitis and assorted chesty conditions triggered by living near Didcot in the Thames 'Basin'. The word Basin says it all. She is always a welcome guest in the neighbouring county of Wiltshire, where she can breathe some downland air and receive tea and sympathy against a barrage of booming –…

The Scottish Tory party is suggesting lowering the school leaving age to 14. My reactions are at war with each other. The main, and better, part of me is outraged. As an educator, I find it disgusting – throwing what will inevitably be working-class children back into society before they are anything like prepared for life in the real world. Oh yes, we are told that they will have to continue in some kind of education or training; that the wee Scots will enjoy a 'hybrid education that is better suited to their talents', as Scottish MSP Russell Findlay claims. But isn't this just getting rid of the children who cause trouble in the classroom? Many children choose business or media studies as a GCSE option because they think it…

In the last weekend of June 1959, I was an officer cadet at RMA Sandhurst, when I received a call from a close friend, Charles Spencer-Churchill. He asked if I would like to come for lunch on Saturday and stay the night with his parents at Blenheim Palace. I duly set off from Camberley in my beautiful, rather ancient, Triumph two-seater sports car, with the roof down on this sunny day. As I drove through the splendid wrought-iron gates in Woodstock, there was a crowd milling about on either side, and on seeing me they started cheering and waving their hats. Well, I thought, I've never been to a palace before – so maybe this is normal. I took off my cap and waved back enthusiastically, feeling a bit like…

The Gospel reading for Sunday 6th April is the story of the raising of Lazarus in its entirety. It is, theologically speaking, highly complex, and neither do I have the scholarship nor is there the space here to explain it in full. There is, however, a detail worth looking at closely: '[Jesus] cried in a loud voice, “Lazarus, here! Come out!” The dead man came out, his feet and hands bound with bands of stuff and a cloth round his face. Jesus said to them, “Unbind him, let him go free.” ' John 11:43-44 This is Christ speaking – indeed ordering – with authority. Elsewhere in the Gospel (Matthew 7:28), he imparts knowledge with authority: 'Jesus had now finished what he wanted to say, and his teaching made a deep…

Very good Latin, Jeeves SIR: A N Wilson makes the point in his piece on P G Wodehouse (Oldie Man of Letters, March issue) that clergy, like all his other characters, are ciphers in his plan to take nothing seriously. This is famously borne out in 'The Great Sermon Handicap', in which Bertie and his pals, during a weekend in a country house, open a book on which local parson will preach the longest sermon. So popular was this short story that it was translated into eight different languages in one volume. My father, a Classics lecturer, supplied the Latin version. Sadly, he was not required to translate 'What ho'. He rendered 'Shift-ho, Jeeves' as 'Nonne abeundum, Jaevius.' Tom Stubbs, Surbiton, Surrey My Victorian Dad SIR: I join Mary Kenny…

Nursery fees The kind-looking woman hands me a piece of paper. 'Thanks very much,' I say. 'We'll be in touch.' My heavily pregnant wife waddles out of the nursery ahead of me. We look at each other dumbfounded. £1,800 a month. That's what the piece of paper says. £1,800 to send our as-yet-unborn child there full-time. We initially thought we were insane, looking for somewhere for a baby that wasn't even a baby yet. The kind-looking woman assured us we weren't. She could offer us a spot in January 2026 at the earliest. The nursery must be no bigger than most hairdressers, with a similar-size garden area out the back. I've seen wedding spaces go cheaper. And we don't even live in London. Honestly, my early thirties have been filled…

When the Going Was Good: An Editor's Adventures During the Last Golden Age of Magazines By Graydon Carter Grove Press £20 Graydon Carter's memoir is required reading for any aspiring editor -or journalist. Now 75, Carter has been an editor for most of the last 52 years – surely some kind of record. In 1973, he founded and edited the Canadian Review in his native Canada. He went on to edit Spy and the New York Observer before the Big One – editing Vanity Fair for 25 years, from 1992 to 2017. He now edits the deliciously compelling weekly online newsletter, Air Mail. The joy – and the rules – of editing have stayed much the same for him, whether it's on a shoestring at the Canadian Review, or with…

DAVID REMFRY: RETROSPECTIVE Beverley Art Gallery, 25th March to 21st June GRAYSON PERRY: DELUSIONS OF GRANDEUR Wallace Collection, 28th March to 26th October What a retrospective this is for David Remfry, with more than 60 works. Remfry, born in Worthing in 1942, grew up in Hull, where he never returned after leaving for London in 1964. In 1979, he contracted the lung condition sarcoidosis, which made oil paint impossible, and so turned to watercolour. He still used oil-painting techniques and successfully worked on a scale generally thought unfeasible for watercolour. There was an important 20-year residence, literally, at New York's Chelsea Hotel during its glory days. Together with those of the city's nightclubs, its habitués inspired two of his favourite themes: dancers and the relationships between people and their dogs.…

ENGLAND'S OLDIE XI The new England manager Thomas Tuchel's first squad selection was less of a team line-up than the invitation list for a Dad's Army reunion – said one reporter. Tuchel went old school: it is oldie experience that counts. So back into the England set-up came the 34-year-old veteran Jordan Henderson, whose international career had long been assumed over. Even one of the debutants, making his first international appearance, Newcastle United's Dan Burn, is hardly one for the future. At 32, he's one whose peak has, so conventional wisdom has it, long since passed. And then, up front, as his talisman and captain, Tuchel chose Harry Kane. By the time the World Cup Finals are staged in America next summer, he'll be 33. A pensioner, in footballing terms.…

Politicians, as all the world knows, cannot resist the urge to fiddle, if only for the sake of the next day's headline. Nearly 40 years ago, Nigel Lawson invented the Personal Equity Plan, allowing savers to put a limited amount of their savings into a wrapper that would escape income tax on the dividends and capital-gains tax on sales. It was such a good idea that Gordon Brown nicked it. Of course he had to fiddle – so he changed the name to Individual Savings Account. In the ISA's 25 years, some £700bn has been invested and, under today's vicious taxation of direct investment into shares, it's a godsend. After the inevitable fiddling from subsequent chancellors, there is now a veritable litter of ISA piglets, all of which look ripe…

Conjugal rights and wrongs Q My wife and I have been together for more than 30 years and have always been close. I can't imagine anyone better for me and she feels the same about me. The problem is that she has never been interested in sex. At the same time, if she knew I went elsewhere (like her first husband), she would end the marriage. I have endured it by various means, eg alcohol (I'm a recovering alcoholic now) and secret massage visits. Not what I want. I have always been attractive to women, but never found the right one for an affair. Please can you advise? S G, by email A Golly – it's taken you a while to address this, hasn't it. Have you ever had a…

FREEDOM MEMOIRS 1954-2021 ANGELA MERKEL Macmillan, 720pp, £35 Once described as the 'chancellor of the free world', Merkel's reputation has suffered since leaving office. The Times's Oliver Moody found Freedom 'has two central purposes in tension with each other. The first is a desire to set the record straight.' Merkel is frustrated by distortions of her time in office. But the memoir's more interesting mission is an apparently 'sincere effort to fashion a self-critical coherence out of a life that stretches from singing state-approved Marxist anthems round the campfire as a teenager in East Germany to inviting George W Bush round for a spit-roasted wild boar… Freedom is quite unlike any other political autobiography I've read … closer in spirit to the 19th-century Catholic theologian John Henry Newman's Apologia Pro…

'And death shall have no dominion.' Dylan Thomas was not musing on his daily protein goals when he wrote this but he was right on the money if recent publications currently sagging the 'wellbeing' end of the bookshelf are to be believed. These happiness-craving, mental-health-nurturing, sleep-inducing (in the wellbeing meaning of the idea) and digestion-ramping books are nothing if not attempts to stave off the universally inevitable. Take Ian Smith's Eat Your Age: Feel Younger, Be Happier, Live Longer (Harvest, £16.99). Dr Smith takes his readers' lives, decade by decade, and tells them what they should eat to fight decrepitude. At my age I should be tucking into more 'bromelain', a term which covers pineapple, sauerkraut and yoghurt. I should also stock up on turmeric and carrots. That doesn't sound…

'Buy a radio,' said a friend, helping me move into a furnished, rented London flat. I was working from home while my daughter was at school and the silence was initially oppressive and depressing. I bought a transistor to keep me company. I grew up with Radio Four, able to tell the time by the tumpety-tump of The Archers theme tune. Today, like many oldies, I feel the BBC has deserted us in pursuit of younger listeners. The comedy is mostly baffling (I'm Sorry I Haven't a Clue aside), I'm infuriated by the cosy chattiness or rudeness of some of Today's presenters, Melvyn Bragg is sounding increasingly frail and fractious and, after nearly 60 years, Johnny Walker sadly died soon after hanging up his headphones. So, thank heaven for Audible,…