I’ve always really liked Jonathan Meades’ work. But I completely missed this programme. Nothing new (to me), but brilliantly well packaged. (Like a hamburger?)

Saturday night, on the town. An early movie, then a stroll through the centre of the city to an English pub where a friend’s band is to play later that night. Much later, it turns out. They are scheduled for 9.30, which suggests 10.30 will be nearer the mark. It is only 7.30. Normally it’d be ea...

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In the Valley of Elah is a pretty good film, made absolutely mesmerizing by the way Tommy Lee Jones inhabits his role. The lined face, the slight haggardness, the way he keeps his emotions in check: it is his film. The sense we have of not quite knowing who he is, which seems mirrored in the way he...

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The War on Christmas folks object to the removal of Christ from Christmas. (If you’re going to be an etymological Feinschmecker, please note that Jesus is a name -- cf. Jehoshua, Joshua -- while Christ is a title or epithet. Which is to say that if you’re seriously into the Etymological...

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This is a poinsettia, Euphorbia pulcherrima, the most beautiful euphorbia. (Euphorbius was a Greek physician, who promoted the use of resin spurge's sap as a painkiller. He was right to do so.) You will note that the colour of the bracts (bracts are the leaves immediately below the flowers, whi...

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