Celebrity Mastermind
Specialist subject: Laura Ingalls Wilder
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Tag Archives: Obama
How the Space Shuttle Broke My Heart
This weekend’s Radio 4 Extra Floating In Space 3-hour special (9am and 7pm Saturday Mar 1th and iplayer after) with Simon Guerrier explores the history and the fantasy of manned space exploration from the cosmonauts to dreams of Mars … Continue reading
Posted in Children, Culture, Design, Film, History, Politics, Radio, Science, Science Fiction/Fantasy, TV, Uncategorized
Tagged 70s, Carl Sagan, culture, film, FTW, nasa, Obama, politics, Space shuttle
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Body swap Muslims & playing “The Jew”
Had a great discussion with David Baddiel and David Schneider on Front Row this week about why Britain was hosting its first Jewish comedy festival. ItĀ made me revisitĀ this 2009 news film I made on location at the shoot … Continue reading
Posted in Books, Comedy, Culture, Film, Media, Politics, Religion, Theatre
Tagged Allah Made Me Funny, culture, David Baddiel, David Schneider, fagin, film, Jewish comedy, media, Obama, oliver!, Omid Djalili, politics
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The Iran hostage crisis, the Stasi and why the past cannot be left behind
I ate my first Passover Seder meal recently, as a guest of Rabbi Jonathan Romain at his synagogue. I had had the ingredients and their symbolic meaning on the seder table memorized since that sheet Miss Thick gave me to … Continue reading
Posted in Crime and Justice, Germany, History, Religion, Uncategorized
Tagged 70s, Holocaust, Iran, Iran hostage crisis, kindertransport, Obama, Passover, Stasi, Thomas Tsasz, US Embassy Tehran
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Ferris Bueller and Me
John Hughes died four years ago and I wrote this post that day August 6th 2009 before I had a blog of my own. Just found it again thanks to the interwebs. Four years on things aren’t quite the same … Continue reading
Posted in Children, Comedy, Culture, Film, Media, Politics, Uncategorized
Tagged 80s, Chicago, cinema, culture, ferris bueller, film, FTW, Generation X, Hollywood, John Hughes, Matthew Broderick, Molly Ringwald, Obama, politics
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Mr Lincoln’s Wild Ride
I spent a night in the pub playing skittles recently with The Lawmen of Bristol for a radio documentary. They are Wild West enthusiasts, who transport around their home-made saloon town and re-enact historical gunfights for charity. Each has a … Continue reading
Posted in Film, History, Politics
Tagged Abraham Lincoln, cinema, culture, Daniel Day Lewis, Disney, film, Hollywood, Obama, politics, Spielberg, war
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The space shuttle: the shape of things that never came.
Or How The Space Shuttle Promised Me The Universe, But Left Me On The Gantry Of Broke Dreams. It seems appropriate that the final Space Shuttle mission launch got pushed off the front pages and main broadcast news coverage by … Continue reading
Posted in Children, Uncategorized
Tagged 70s, Carl Sagan, cinema, culture, film, Obama, Outer space, politics, Space shuttle, Star Trek, war
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Playing Chess with Gaddafi: What boardgames teach us about winning.
This bizarre image of the Libyan colonel playing chess, whileĀ continuing toĀ defy NATO airstrikes and international condemnation made headlines round the world.Ā And according to a new book, fuelling the Miliband brothers’ Labour leadership feud,Ā Ed Miliband was a serious teenageĀ … Continue reading
Posted in Children, Culture, Film, Games, Politics, Uncategorized
Tagged Chess, culture, David Cameron, Gadaffi, mastermind, Matthew Broderick, Obama, Poker, terrorism, war
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Code-name Geronimo: Parallels between the Apache hero and Osama Bin Laden
Played out via helmet cam, Hollywood-style still photos released of the Commander-In-Chief, in the Situation Room supervising the kill. For an operation that was reportedly a year in the planning, an elementary understanding of the history of the American West … Continue reading