Writing
Notes from the work
Six decades in film and publishing, written down as it happened — on producing, writing, the industry, and the people in it.
Essays
2 min read
Happening
Before we get to my more general comments I do want to make a special mention of the journalist Rod Liddle. He doesn’t cross my mind more than I cross his, which would mean not at all. But on Sunda…
Read the essay
4 min read
LOVING AMERICA & BRITAIN
What is it about the Anglo American way of life that makes other people so jealous? I believe its because they know that there is much to be envied. They mock our culture but then buy our films, mu…
Read the essay
3 min read
Password Frenzy
I don’t know about your take on this, but I have reached Password overload. I agree with the need for security, but clearly our systems don’t operate as they should. They’re impossible for the cons…
Read the essay
10 min read
MY DEATH
Just before the start of 2012 I died. Luckily for me I was in a hospital at the time and was resuscitated within a couple of minutes. No white lights for me, no angels, and no celestial choir. Just…
Read the essay
2 min read
Hellboy 2
Today we review the film Hellboy II – The Golden Army. It’s great fun and very well directed by Guillermo Del Toro who is clearly a gifted man. His visual concepts are surreal but believable, kind …
Read the essay
2 min read
THESE ARE A FEW OF MY FAVOURITE THINGS
These are a few of my favourite things….
Read the essay
2 min read
Freedom
What do we value more than life itself? Freedom. I write this with some certainty because many of our fathers and grand fathers died to preserve our freedoms from tyranny and oppression. Like many …
Read the essay
3 min read
LINGERING FAREWELL
Today we are going to mull over a moral dilemma. Is it right or acceptable behavior to share your own death with the paying public - Isn’t this the ultimate reality television?
Read the essay
2 min read
Sydney Pollack
Sydney Pollack, the Academy Award-winning director of "Out of Africa" who achieved acclaim making popular, mainstream movies with A-list stars, including "The Way We Were" and "Tootsie," died Monda…
Read the essay
2 min read
JOURNEY OF HARMONY
Yesterday “The Journey of Harmony” took place in London. This was the name given to the relay running of the Olympic Flame by the Chinese Government. It was routed from Wembley Stadium, through se…
Read the essay
2 min read
Negotiating Your Debts In
Every day I am hearing the same reports. “It was a nightmare! Four phone-calls a day, every day for a month; the people were so rude and aggressive.”
Read the essay
2 min read
COMMUNICATING
Today there are ever more ways in which we can communicate so why is that we are not communicating? People e-mail, text, Skype, telephone but are we talking with each other, or at each other?
Read the essay
2 min read
Bloody Ireland
Just when you began to think there was one intractable problem in the world that could be solved by diplomacy along comes another murdering bunch of bastards to prove you wrong.
Read the essay
3 min read
CHANGING THE PLACE
A woman named Jessica Hale, who makes documentary films, made me open my eyes to the fact that the future changes the world will need to undertake will rest heavily or lightly on the shoulders of t…
Read the essay
2 min read
A Wonderful Day
Some days are made to remember for all the right reasons. Today was like that. The sun was shining and our daughter and her husband, Matt, and wonderful son, Archie, 3 and a half years old of blond…
Read the essay
4 min read
25 Things About Me
First I wish to include a note via my good friend Chip in America who sent me the following;
Read the essay
4 min read
Don't Make Us You
I once walked past a Jewish beggar outside one of the gates to Jerusalem. He extended his hand to me, palm up, in the universal gesture and said something to me in Ivrit that a companion translated…
Read the essay
4 min read
Brit Sport Stars
I am a lover of the new, the trendy and those gadgets that push us into the future. A friend asked me to take a look at a new virtual environment on my computer. He was clearly captivated and he wa…
Read the essay
3 min read
Calvin Coolidge
President Calvin Coolidge was very different to the more talkative modern politicians with whom we are currently familiar. There was something very appealing about Coolidge, he used a minimum of wo…
Read the essay
4 min read
Yom Ha’atzmaut Film Night
A large and animated group attended a very successful Israeli film screening and discussion at our synagogue on May 16th. The films were brought to us by Shlomit Naor who is a Shlicha. Her job bein…
Read the essay
4 min read
Liberally Jewish
Most of you reading this blog are not Jewish, in fact, for sure, the majority of the group reading this are not Liberal Jews, the group I take pride in belonging to. This is not Jewish lite, since …
Read the essay
3 min read
Islamic Victims
In the last week the trial was concluded of a group of Islamic men, born in the UK, who were accused of plotting to blow up a large number of trans Atlantic jets. Three of the defendants were found…
Read the essay
3 min read
Going For A Hike
I found the solution for spending too much money going out that we debated in this column recently. It is called a ramble in the UK and a hike in the US. After another week in which it seemed like …
Read the essay