FOR those of a certain age (i.e. anyone born in the last century) one word will be sufficient to evoke fond memories of unmissable criminal court dramas. A reminder of tantalisingly clever tales rich in humour, wry comment and a panoply of credible and almost loveable rogues. And that word is Rumpole. Horace Rumpole, barrister. Irascible and grumpy. Denizen of the Old Bailey. Scourge of judges, fellow legal eagles and the police in almost equal measure. Pricker of the pretentious and the pompous. Fondly regarded by London’s underworld as the go-to man when “up before the beak”, he made a… Continue reading
AS we hurtle towards F-Day it might pay to heed the news from Australia. If you can find it. So little is ever classed by UK editors as sufficiently noteworthy to be included in their pages. Unless, of course, it is of a bushfires, mouse plagues or shark attacks. Although… 
BOOKING a holiday in Cornwall? Better make sure your agent puts it in writing. Think of the poor souls desperate for a summer break who decided on a couple of weeks along the sunny (?) Cornish Riviera. Suddenly they find part of their time in a holiday park perched on… 
BOOK lovers are a stubborn and peculiar breed. They will determinedly push on to the very last word despite all the negative vibes they are receiving from their current choice of reading matter. They plough relentlessly forward, deaf to a background noise about plot, characters, writing style, inconsistencies, typos (polite… 
NEARLY choked on my afternoon cuppa. Spluttered and dribbled before disaster was eventually averted. Yorkshire’s finest it was, too. You know, the brew that guy with the accent as broad as the Dales is forever chuntering on about. Seems that the much adored novelist and regular tea drinker Jane Austen…