Musings of a REAL Tank Commander – Part 20 From Wilderness to Gravy Train

BY LATE 1990 4th Tonks had become an Op Granby (Gulf War I) support regiment, with our tanks stripped for spares to support the troops in Kuwait and increasing numbers of personnel being told off ...

The Mummy Diaries – Life in Lockdown, so, Who You Gonna Call?

WELL, I FOR ONE am delighted with the new lockdown measures that have been put in place. I mean, so straightforward, all makes total sense, gives us all a sense of purpose when we can ...

Is eu+me just another nationalist front? You decide

IN A TWEET deserving more attention than it has received so far, anti-nationalist account  @themajorityscot alerted me to a pro-EU Scottish group I hadn’t noticed before, eu+me:

The Mummy Diaries - It’s the terrible two’s... but this time the female version!

THIS is my life…

“Morning Lily!” I say optimistically.

“NOOOOO!”  Roars Lily.

“Did you have a good sleep?” I ask.

“NOOOOO!” Roars Lily.

...

The Mummy Diaries – Fine Dining, memorable pictures and what would you do without me?

HI PEEPS! Another week, another blog. Even though it’s been a pretty rough year, the weeks seem to be flying in at the moment. I’m not sure if it’s because we are settling down to ...

ThinkMovies: Saint Maud

FRIENDS, the other critics who have seen and written about Saint Maud have put me in a bit of an awkward situation again. Like they did when talking about Booksmart, many of my colleagues appear to have ...

Don't give a Shnittke about cancel culture? Read on

ALFRED SCHNITTKE saw the future. His First Symphony, five years in the making and premiered in Gorky in 1974, having being turned down by numerous Soviet orchestras too afraid the piece would not meet the ...

The Mummy Diaries – When is it okay to mention the ‘C’ word?

HELLO OCTOBER! At the risk of causing a public outcry and outrage, I’m going to talk about the ‘C’ word in my blog this week. Sorry. Yes..

Christmas!!

That’s ...

ThinkMovies: Schemers

FRIENDS, I try to keep my opinions, and the way I arrive at them, as original as possible in these weekly deep dives into the movies. I like to think that such regular readers as ...

Musings of a REAL Tank Commander – Part 19 Jaikets, gophers, and being rudely stripped

HAVING HEAVED a collective sigh of relief in waving goodbye to Cyprus, it didn’t take long to get back into the groove of being an armoured regiment on tanks again. The rear party we had ...

The Mummy Diaries – Keep Calm and Mummy On!

WE ARE in the middle of a pandemic. Our county has gone into further restrictions since midnight. The Playschool is closed. We have to queue and wear masks everywhere. We are dosed with the cold. 

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ThinkMovies: Babyteeth

FRIENDS, this week’s movie has got me thinking about audiences. As a critic and film writer, I like to think I know who my audience is pretty well. I write for a mid-market, educated, middle-Scotland, ...