Eyes Wide Shut (1999): Stanley Kubrick s final movie starred Tom Cruise and then wife Nicole Kidman in a dense story of sexual obsession and mysterious cloaked gatherings in stately homes. Elveden Hall has never looked so magnificent with its mix of Gothic and Indian architecture forming the backdrop to an almost religious looking orgy which Tim Cruise s character finds himself embroiled in. A masterful mix of location, lighting and production design.
Mildenhall:
Tomorrow Never Dies (1997): Pierce Bond is James Bond in this tense multi-media drama co-starring Jonathan Pryce and Michelle Yeoh. RAF Mildenhall doubled as a US Airforce base in the South Pacific after a British warship is sunk in the South China Sea. A parade of palm trees forms a silent honour guard alongside the runway to disguise its decided untropical UK origins. Bond has other strong links with Suffolk thanks to
Resilience was once held to be a virtue, epitomised by the stiff upper lip. Today a self-indulgent eagerness to emote is more likely to attract approval. It is a depressing trend that has been reinforced by the Covid pandemic.
Too often real suffering and loss have been matched by endless carping from those who have experienced little genuine hardship. Miller s generation endured six years of brutal war. All that some of today s Covid generation have endured is a year spent watching Netflix.
The impulse for unjustified wailing is highlighted in the current row over robust comments made by Jeremy Mayhew, the finance chairman of the City of London Corporation, which runs the globally renowned Barbican Arts Centre.
Think yourselves lucky I’m here today. I could have been up before North London magistrates, charged with resisting arrest, if not attempted murder.
At the weekend, having been confined to barracks since September recovering from a gammy leg, I took my physio’s advice and attempted a walk in the local park.
My first faltering steps on clambering out of the car made Douglas Bader look like Usain Bolt. Gradually, though, I found my feet, so to speak. Bursting through the pain barrier, I finally hit the wall after about 200 yards and collapsed on to a convenient wooden bench.
by Nick Pourgourides (Amazon £7.99, 133pp)
One OF the joys of lockdown for me has been watching all the old classic Kenneth More films on Talking Pictures TV.
These include the Doctor farces, with More ebullient alongside Dirk Bogarde and James Robertson Justice, and North West Frontier, where More shares a railway carriage with Lauren Bacall, clanking across remote outposts of the Empire.
More was the type of Englishman who was always jovial and competent and courageous. He’s the chap you’d want at your side if the ship is sinking, the plane is in flames, or the steam train is under attack from angry locals. He was never snooty or coldly ironic, never irascible or eccentric.
JOHNNIE Johnson had just the right name for a Spitfire pilot. It simply oozed Old School derring-do. But that was just the start of it, because Johnson, son of a Leicestershire policeman, also possessed enormous courage, tactical nous and an invincibility that combined to make him the top scoring RAF fighter ace of the Second World War. Now two new books by acclaimed Worcester war historian Dilip Sarkar explore the man behind the legend and flesh out his amazing aerial exploits. Johnnie Johnson’s Great Adventure (£19.95) and Johnnie Johnson 1942 War Diary: The War Diary of the Spitfire Ace of Aces (£25) are both published by Pen and Sword.