Set in an upmarket West London health club with ‘central heating and wall-to-wall fitted carpets’, this captivating Pathe newsreel time capsule from 1966 reveals an era when sportswear hasn’t been invented yet – so the guys are doing their exercises… Read More »The Keep Fit Craze
‘What is most beautiful in virile men is something feminine; what is most beautiful in feminine women is something masculine…’ So wrote the late Susan Sontag, in her classic 1964 essay ‘Notes on Camp’. It’s a great, persuasive line, but… Read More »On Feeling Totally Masculine
My Columbo odyssey continues – I’m now on the sixth season, made in 1976. Season five was a very bumpy ride – and the show was nearly cancelled – but season six starts with the most exquisitely delightful Columbo episode yet. I didn’t know that… Read More »When Columbo Met Captain Kirk (& Fell in Love)
So, I got around to reading Kenneth Cook’s 1961 novel Wake in Fright (recommended by S.J. Watson) which the film of the same name was based on, and which I wrote about here. It is a remarkable, vivid, and wry piece of writing, still… Read More »Oh God, That Light!
Columbo meets an early pro-sporno Having given up on Netflix and the 21st Century, I’ve been watching Columbo – Amazon Prime Video have the first seven seasons (1971-8), gloriously restored, and digitally remastered in HD. Always a high-production value show, it can now be… Read More »The Curious Case of the Killer Buttocks