West Commerce Herald (Illustrated): Reporting a fast-moving world...slowly

    Boris Johnson - The Gambler Tom Bower W H Allen   Boris Johnson has led a colourful life and one would expect this biography to be a colourful read. It is. But as with the proverbial parson’s egg, it is and it isn’t. Tom Bower is an accomplished biographer with subjects such as Tony Blair, Richard Branson, Conrad (and Lady) Black and Robert Maxwell among his subjects. This book covers a lot of ground that with which we are already familiar.  His philandering is well known. So too is his fickle relationship with the truth. Even his days at Eton and Oxford with his membership of the Bullingham Club have been covered in the media before.   Where Bower comes up with fresh material is at the start (and the time before) of Johnson’s life. His childhood and the insecure family life. The other place where Bower scores is the in the present day. The author goes into great detail of the current Covid-19 crisis and before that Brexit.    Johnson has a need to be liked and (in some c

    The Ypres Memorial at the Menin Gate, Flanders where the name of Lance Corporal Edward Cox is engraved   Today is Remembrance Sunday, the day we commemorate the contribution of British and Commonwealth military and civilian servicemen and women in the two World Wars and later conflicts. It also includes remembering all those from Ireland, even though the Republic is not part of the Commonwealth, who gave their lives. Some 210,000 Irishmen served in the British forces during World War One of which 35,000 were killed - a figure that rose to a final toll 50,000 due to wounds received.  That is more than were in the GPO in Dublin on Easter Monday 1916 and even more than those who claimed to have been. (I’ve never found out why the post office was open on a bank holiday.)   During World War Two when Ireland was a Free State, it was neutral. That didn’t stop some 50,000 men and women enlisting in the British forces to fight Hitler. (Sadly, a few misguided individuals took a view t

  Last night I played this vid to my girl.  I didn’t actually. I just came across it on YouTube when I was looking for something else. The song is nearly 60 years old (it may even be 60) and was written by a buddy, pal and mate of the guy in the video wearing a red t-shirt.   I don’t know the exact date the song was written but I can tell you the guy in the red t-shirt recorded it on 26 November 1962 with three of his buddies, pals and mates, including the one who wrote the song. That’s 58 years ago. The eagle-eyed among you will have noticed that many of the people in the video watching the man in the red t-shirt singing the song weren’t even born when the song was recorded.  But there they are singing along and bopping away to the song Please Please Me . The song was made famous by The Beatles for they were the four buddies, pals and mates who recorded it in November 1962.  The man in the red t-shirt was called Paul. He still is. Although some deferential people call him Sir P

   From Wednesday’s Daily Telegraph announcements page. I love it to bits.  When my time comes I’d like to think I’ll slip into a comma before coming to a full stop.  

  Dublin is one of the finest cities in the world. It has history going back more than 1,000 years. Sadly not all of that history has been preserved. To make matters worse, despite making people aware of the constant threat to Dublin, developers and other other Philistines keep attempting to rob the city of its history.  In my lifetime we have had various rapes commited on the Irish capital with one of the worst being in the 1970s when Dublin Corporation attempted to build its new 20th century headquarters on top of a Viking settlement at Wood Quay.  They succeeded up to a point. Now very little is left of Viking Dublin. Dublin suffers these outrages from time to time. A few months ago, developers bulldozed the Ballsbridge home of the only 1916 Rising leader to die in the rebellion, Michael Joseph O’Rahilly.  Known as The O’Rahilly he lived at 40 Herbert Park and despite a fierce battle to prevent his home being demolished, the heathens got their way and the building was razed earl

This morning’s Daily Telegraph carries an obituary for Spencer Davis, the musician who enjoyed considerable chart success in the 1960s. One of his achievements with his band  the Spencer Davis Group was to knock The Beatles off the No 1 slot in January 1966 with the Jackie Edwards composed "Keep on Running".       Initially, the Telegraph obit said that the Spencer Davis Group had kept The Beatles from the top slot. It is the word “kept” that had to be disputed. The Beatles were not “kept” from the No 1 slot.  The Fab Four had been at the top of the charts with their double A-sided single "Day Tripper/We Can Work It Out" for five weeks so were probably due to start their downward trip out of the Top 20.   Naturally, I wrote to the Telegraph to point out the incorrect use of the word “kept”. My concern was that anyone under a certain age - say 60 - might not realise that The Beatles went to No 1 with all their singles between 1963 and 1967, until Engelbert Hum

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