BY JAMES BEMBRIDGE 12:30 pm, The Beaujolais, Soho. A meeting with Cloe. Behind us, a table of lunching women – that is, women who don’t lunch. About their bones, dresses hang like sheets caught on a telephone pole. One braves a grain of mozzarella, hesitates on it, and then returns it to the plate. ‘Filling, isn’t it?’ she asks. The plate is one of two … Continue reading The Secret
BY JAMIE FOSTER Annie Tempest has been called a national treasure for her much-lauded and internationally loved cartoon strip about a fictitious English village with the eccentric Lord and Lady Tottering and their family who reside at Tottering Hall. During the thirty years that ‘Tottering-by-Gently’ has appeared weekly in Country Life magazine, the Tottering family – all three generations of them – have been seen … Continue reading Fun and Games with the Totterings
BY JOE NUTT I’ve always empathised with the charming character Bill Nighy plays in the Richard Curtis film, About Time. He uses his peculiarly inherited ability to time travel, for the most admirable of purposes; he rereads Dickens. I’m perfectly aware that that statement alone risks losing readers, not just because sitting quietly on one’s own, engrossed in a fiction isn’t high up on the … Continue reading Why and What Do You Read?
BY JAMIE FOSTER Britain’s shoreline boasts a vast array of landscapes, ranging from natural formations to those shaped by human intervention. Since ancient times, people have been drawn to the coast, resulting in a diverse array of settlements, from quaint villages to bustling seaside resorts and industrial towns. While many have relied on the sea for their livelihood, the coast also serves as a place … Continue reading England’s Coast
BY ROGER WATSON Published under the auspices of the Bruges Group, Green in tooth and claw by Niall McCrae, no stranger to the pages of CSM, is an action packed tour through scams perpetuated by the green movement. This is not a scientific treatise demolishing the green movement, especially its Malthusian ‘zero carbon’ slogan. For that, see Not Zero by Ross Clark. Rather it is … Continue reading Green in Tooth and Claw
BY JAMIE FOSTER Anja Jakob has specialised in games, sport and fun for intelligent dogs with her “Anja Jakob – creative games lead to playful success” dog training school. She also runs seminars at dog training schools as well as training weeks in dog hotels. Cordula Weiss breeds short-haired collies and it’s very important to her that her dogs are kept busy in a variety … Continue reading Games With Your Dog
BY JAMIE FOSTER I reviewed the late Norman Thelwell’s book The Effluent Society back in March last year. Thelwell (1923–2004) was famous for his horse and pony cartoons, but his work was far more wide ranging. He focused his exceptional talent and humour on many diverse subjects, with his witty and wry observations providing amusement and sharp social comment. Some Damn Fool’s Signed the Rubens … Continue reading Some Damn Fool’s Signed the Rubens Again
BY IAN MITCHELL Ian Mitchell’s Book Recommendations Radical by Nature: The Revolutionary Life of Alfred Russel Wallace – by James T. Costa Princeton University Press, 552 pages, Hardback 2023, ISBN 978 0691 233796 THE BEAUTY of life in the Scottish Highlands and islands becomes more evident than normal immediately after the Festive season. Quiet descends once the drunken hordes of the lost and lonely have … Continue reading The Destruction of the Scottish Mind
BY ROGER WATSON When I heard that Frederick Forsyth’s 1975 novella The Shepherd had been made into a Christmas film, I was uneasy and curious in equal measure. I was captivated by Forsyth’s 1971 The Day of the Jackal, both the book and the original film, but slightly less impressed by The Odessa File published in 1972. However, my mother was a great fan of … Continue reading The Shepherd
BY JACK WATSON In her memoir The Woman In Me, Britney Spears, a controversial teen pop artist from the 1990s, shares her story on how she earned her name. The ‘Princess of Pop’, the moving story about her difficult life and the challenges she has faced are highlighted, as are her hard childhood, her father being her conservator and all her setbacks through this period … Continue reading The Woman in Me
BY JAMIE FOSTER Our hill farmers have shaped some of the most beautiful parts of Britain for generations, acting as custodians of precious environmental amenities while providing a crucial part of our livestock industry. Our hills and uplands are elevated areas of less favoured agricultural land. These Less Favoured Areas (LFAs) are suitable for extensive livestock production because of their geography and their climate: they … Continue reading Hill Farming in the North of England
BY ROGER WATSON I had never heard of August Šenoa until a recent visit to Croatia. In the week before my visit, which was my first time in the country, I searched online for Croatian writers. With a preference for modern rather than classical writers, I encountered August Šenoa. My interest in him was heightened by the fact that he came from Zagreb where there … Continue reading August Šenoa
BY JAMIE FOSTER A paper, published in the Journal of Research in Personality, says a dog’s personality reflects the personality of its owner. It also explains that dogs experience personality changes similar to how humans do over the course of their lives. Research conducted in 2020 surveyed the owners of 1,600 dogs, covering 50 different breeds. The canines were split closely between males and females, … Continue reading Dogs Like Us
BY JAMIE FOSTER In this powerful and hard-hitting analysis, Daniel Jupp examines the enormous personal power and political influence of one of the world’s richest men. The Gates of Hell covers everything from the childhood influences that shaped Bill Gates to the Microsoft years and his current incarnation as the most powerful philanthropist on the planet. Jupp traces just how vast and unaccountable the influence … Continue reading Gates of Hell?
BY ANTONIA FILMER The newly released book Cold War 2.0 completes the author’s 2023 trilogy, all three are connected by his take on foreign policy. Prof Nalapat is India’s first professor of geopolitics, since 1999 he has been the UNESCO Peace Chair at Manipal University, and has concentrated much of his effort at keeping peace between states in conflict. This last book is a feast … Continue reading Cold War 2.0
BY THE EDITOR When I received The Deer Stalker’s Bedside Book in the post, I thought about sending it to a colleague to review. First, I know next to nothing about deer stalking and second, if I put the book beside our bed my wife would fast dispose of it, and quite possibly me. But when I’d skimmed the book a bit I was keen … Continue reading The Deer Stalker’s Bedside Book
BY ALEXIA JAMES Oliver Preston has been drawing cartoons for 25 years and draws weekly cartoons for Country Life Magazine. His work has been published in the Beano and the Dandy, Paris Match, The Times, The Guardian, The Independent, Punch Magazine, The Spectator and he drew regularly for The Field Magazine. Preston has now teamed up with Hugh Kellett who studied languages at Oxford and … Continue reading The Dictionary of Posh
BY DOMINIC WIGHTMAN Ask anyone but politicians anywhere around Europe what they think of politicians, and you’ll get groans. You’ll also hear words like “low calibre” and “disconnected”. You’ll receive whingeing about “short-termism”, “career politicians” and “reacting only to polls”. There is no coincidence in this. In the Internet age we are all interconnected as never before, and politicians, under far too much scrutiny, are … Continue reading Europe’s Leadership Famine
BY JACK WATSON In Unbreakable, Ronnie O’Sullivan, certainly one of the most successful and prestigious players in the history of snooker, shares the story of how he became perhaps the greatest snooker player of all time. It explains how his journey has been extreme, from ‘losing himself’ for seven years to alcohol and drugs, to spending part of his career in rehab going through the … Continue reading Unbreakable
BY ROGER WATSON Elif Shafak is a Turkish feminist writer. A contemporary of Turkey’s ‘man of letters’ Orhan Pamuk, and, like Pamuk, persecuted by the present Turkish government, she chooses to live in England. Pamuk, on the other hand, under constant armed guard, chooses to remain in Istanbul. Being an outspoken writer in Turkey is a dangerous business. The topics covered by Shafak are wide … Continue reading The Island of Missing Trees
