Cometo ANOLDIE LITERARY

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C O N T E N T S

THE OBAs TheOldieBritish rtists Award Sepage 58

FEATURES & REGULARS

7 The Old Un’s Diary 12 Still With Us Sandy Wilson 14 Profitable Wonders James Le Fanu 16 Modern Life What is Stuxnet? 17 Olden Life What was ‘Judy for Girls’? 18 House Husbandry Giles Wood 20 Pearls of Wisdom Melanie McFadyean 21 Notes from the Sofa Raymond Briggs 23 Granny Annexe Virginia Ironside 25 I Once Met… Compton Mackenzie 26 God… Melanie McDonagh 26 …Mammon Margaret Dibben 27 Fashion Tamasin Doe 28 Dr Stuttaford’s Surgery nails;

night vision 30 Roving Reporter John Sweeney 32 A Treasury of Comfort Tim Hilton 33 Wilfred De’Ath Me and my Spleen 33 Rant Robert Low 35 Brave New World Jane Thynne 35 Words Diarmaid Ó Muirithe 37 Superbyw@ys Webster 38 Death Without the Sting John McGarry 39 Send us your txt 39 Ed Reardon’s Month 40 East of Islington Sam Taylor 42 The Other James Pembroke

James Pembroke 43 Whiteboard Jungle Kate Sawyer

45 Brief Encounter Nigel Fountain 46 Father and Son Mark Olden 47 Mind the Age Gap Lizzie Enfield 48 Pedants’ Revolt Jane Thynne 48 Olympic Journal Janie Hampton 50 Readers Write 53 Unwrecked England Candida Lycett Green 55 Out and About 56 Travel Rosie Boycott on birdwatching in Colombia; Hugh O’Shaughnessy on the United Arab Emirates 58 Rant Ros Altmann 58 Oldie British Artists Award 66 Oldie Literary Lunches 67 Reader Event A Taste of the Douro Valley 90 Dear Mavis with Mavis Nicholson

BOOKS 59 John Amis on Kathleen Ferrier

Piers Brendon on A N Wilson’s ‘Hitler’ Paul Bailey on ‘Full Service’ James Le Fanu on Bryan Appleyard Rosie Boycott on ‘The Salt-Stained

Book’ and ‘A Ravelled Flag’ Edward Mirzoeff on ‘More than Cowboys’

Rachel Redford reviews audiobooks REVIEWS 68 MUSIC Richard Osborne

70 homefront Alice Pitman 70 cokery Elisabeth Luard 71 WINE Robert Joseph 72 GARDENING David Wheeler 72 SPORT Frank Keating 73 EXPAT Fiona Ledger 74 FILM Marcus Berkmann 74 theatre Paul Bailey 75 OLDIE MASTERS Philip Athill 76 DVD Alice Pitman 76 wireles Valerie Grove 77 TELEVISION Richard Ingrams 79 EXHIBITION Nick Newman PLUS80CROSSWORDS by Antico 83 COMPETITION with Tessa Castro 83 SUDOKU 84 CLASSIFIED

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A M O N G T H I S M O N T H ’ S C O N T R I B U T O R S

john mcgarry studied medicine in the early Fifties and became a consultant gynaecologist and obstetrician. He worked until his forced retirement last year aged 75, and describes his hobbies as ‘growing old disgracefully, cooking, reading real books, emptying my wine cellar and watching my wife tend our 3-acre garden.’ On page 38 he writes about the dying art of human dissection and his plan to donate his body to Bristol Medical School.

netta martin has spent forty years as a lecturer on cruise ships. Her long writing career has included book reviewing, travel writing and a twenty-year stint as an agony columnist on the Sunday Express.She has also written three best-sellers, Tycooon, Stag, and Cruise, described as racy reads – now, alas, out of print, but available on Amazon Kindle. Many years ago she visited Compton Mackenzie in his boudoir – see page 25.

tim hilton is an art critic and historian, and the author of a leading two-volume biography of John Ruskin. His more recent book, OneMoreKilometre andWe’reintheShowers, covers very different terrain – life as a racing cyclist. He spends his days reading and writing in a shed at the bottom of his Suffolk garden – from where he penned the essay on page 32 in praise of an anthology of ‘second-best’ poems.

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