BY ROGER WATSON Why anyone would go to see Conclave, a film about the secretive proceedings behind locked doors at the Vatican – thus ‘conclave’ – in the election of a new Pope, is unclear. But they have, in their droves. It is a box office success netting $75 million worldwide and scoring 93% positive reviews on Rotten Tomatoes and 86% on their Popcornmeter of … Continue reading Conclave
BY ROGER WATSON I am sure that I am not alone. My life is dominated by series of electronic devices which include a MacBook, an iPad, an iPhone (providers other than Apple are available) and a Kindle (Country Squire passim). It is not so much the fact that my whole life is on these devices, having fallen totally for the convenience of the digital age, … Continue reading Tech Grandpa
BY ROGER WATSON The Monk and the Gun (2023) emerges from the relatively new but thriving Bhutanese film industry, centring on events from 2008 when Bhutan held its first general election. The King had shocked the nation by abdicating ahead of the elections, leading to unease among the population, particularly as the internet had only just arrived in the country. This film prompted me to … Continue reading The Monk and the Gun
BY ROGER WATSON There used to be a slaughterhouse in the village where I was brought up in the northeast of Scotland. During my childhood, the slaughterhouse was a modest wooden hut. We spent a lot of time playing near the slaughterhouse as the road was quiet and we could run our carts (makeshift erections of pram wheels and a few planks) down the sloped … Continue reading The Old Slaughterhouse
BY ROGER WATSON If you were intending to watch Frank Caruso’s Mary over the festive season, prepare yourself for a Christmas turkey like no other. This film is essentially ‘Mary: the Prequel’, as Caruso attempts to narrate the story of Mary leading up to and immediately following the birth of Jesus. We know very little about Mary prior to her betrothal to Joseph and The … Continue reading Mary
BY ROGER WATSON Scrolling through the menu of films on the BA flight from London to Hong Kong recently, I came across Freud’s Last Session. I would not have been interested had it not been for the face of Britain’s national treasure and veteran actor Anthony Hopkins below the title. The premise of the film is that, in his final days while dying of cigar-induced … Continue reading A Fraud’s Last Session
BY ROGER WATSON My children used to ask me, and sometimes my grandchildren still ask, whether I killed anyone in “the war.” The war they refer to is the First Gulf War, and they’re reminded of it by my medal case and commissioning scroll, signed by HM Queen Elizabeth II, both of which hang in my office. My usual response to their question is “only … Continue reading RAMC
BY ROGER WATSON “Hello, I’m Roger and I’m an air miles addict.” That is how I imagine opening the inaugural meeting of a new support group I intend to establish. Membership of AMA (Air Miles Anonymous) will be restricted to those with over one million air miles in their account. It sounds like a humble brag, but it is true, I am an air miles … Continue reading Too Many Air Miles
BY ROGER WATSON I have had a lifelong fear of wasps. I’m not sure where this unusually intense fear originated. Interestingly, it took many years before I was actually stung by one, and it turned out to be a minor event, like a needle prick. Although I have yet to be stung by a bee, they surprisingly don’t instil the same sense of panic in … Continue reading Man and Wasp Can Live in Harmony
BY ROGER WATSON The screams of swifts echo off the buildings as they swoop down from great heights to gorge on insects flying just about twenty feet overhead. The evening is balmy, and diners are beginning to gather at the finest trattoria in Boccadasse, the exquisite fishing village at the end of Corso Italia in Genoa. My wife and I find ourselves at Osvaldo, where … Continue reading Osvaldo
BY ROGER WATSON “Hi, my name’s Ken, what’s yours?” Thus, I first met Captain Ken Kirk, a nursing officer in 212 Field Hospital RAMC (V). I was a lieutenant in 205 Scottish General Hospital on attachment to 212 for the summer camp. My work at the University of Edinburgh prevented me from joining my own unit for summer camp in Germany. Instead, I drove to … Continue reading Man Down
BY ROGER WATSON Plans to create a unitary mayoral authority covering the present East Riding of Yorkshire Council area including Hull, which presently has its own city council, were published on the 23rd of November 2023. The details are contained in the Hull and East Yorkshire Devolution Deal. As I explained recently in the Daily Sceptic, a major plank of the devolution proposals is achieving … Continue reading Green with Ennui
BY ROGER WATSON Could dick pics be useful? At last, a subject worthy of consideration by the fine minds that constitute the readership of Country Squire Magazine. We have recently seen the trouble that sharing photographs of one’s genitals can get a man into. William Wragg MP has become infamous for sharing pictures of his honourable member on the gay dating app Grindr. Quite what … Continue reading Unsolicited Salami
BY ROGER WATSON For those of us who don’t lie awake at night fretting about global warming or wake up in the morning in a cold sweat wondering if, when we open the curtains, the world as we know it will still exist, the excellent film Climate: The Movie is exactly what we have been waiting for. In seventy minutes, every climate change myth is … Continue reading Heresy
BY ROGER WATSON The waiter suggested that I might want to try another restaurant as they had a sixteenth birthday party taking place that evening. He indicated a long table set for about twenty people but, as I had already been seated and had a panoramic view of the Boccadasse harbour in Genoa, I was reluctant to move. Then my heart sank. In walked twenty … Continue reading Eataly*
BY ROGER WATSON Humberside Airport is twenty miles from Hull. Sitting in splendid isolation in the Lincolnshire countryside, it is not exactly a hive of activity. This makes it very endearing. Other than the occasional chartered flight, KLM runs two flights a day to Schiphol and there is a regular stream of helicopters to offshore oilrigs. The Hull City FC owner and Turkish billionaire Acun … Continue reading Blotting My Copybook
BY ROGER WATSON As penitents receive the ashes from a Catholic priest today on Ash Wednesday, the priest says, ‘Remember, man, you are dust and to dust you will return.’ These days, at least for children and the faint-hearted, the priest may use alternative forms, attenuated so as not to remind people of their ultimate fate. I have no idea what those forms are, but … Continue reading Remember, Man, You Are Dust
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 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 ROGER WATSON With what could be described as typical German efficiency the technicians had me mic’d up well in advance. I had my jacket taken off and the bottom button of my shirt undone. The wireless relay was attached to the back of my trousers and the wire to the microphone inserted under my shirt and up to the collar where it was clipped … Continue reading Never Trust a Technician
