Often, it is fleeting and singular moments which define competitions. If there is one from England’s World Cup campaign, it was definitely Mary Earps’s penalty save late on in the final. So recurrently during England’s exciting summer in Australia, it was the defence which got the nation out of trouble...
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Television nowadays seems to suffer from what I would term a ‘reboot culture’. Old programmes are revived often because big bosses have fathomed that they were actually serving quite a useful purpose in the first place. There have been two examples of that lately: the BBC reboot of Waterloo Road...
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England fell to a disappointing Netball World Cup final defeat on Sunday 6 August, losing 61-45 to Australia. The Roses were competing in their first final compared to Australia’s ninth, but optimism was high. A landmark win over the Aussies in the group stages had lifted expectations that a World...
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Like most sensible people, I watched the sight of US Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell freezing at a podium recently with a grimaced expression. McConnell (81) was delivering a speech inside the Capitol when he suddenly ceased speaking and glazed over in a gormless expression. There are few more unsavoury...
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Thomas Bartley reviews the explicit, open and candid memoir of Baxter Dury's childhood.
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The two positions that spring to mind when you think of the most challenging in the country are Prime Minister and England manager. Few in recent years have been able to weather the storms of either as effectively as Gareth Southgate, England’s men’s football team manager since 2016. This ability...
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It has been a bruising few years, and we all like a feel-good story. So when performer Georgie Grier took to Twitter/X to tell followers that her opening show at the Edinburgh Fringe had been attended by a meagre audience of one, a wave of sympathy ensued. Responses to the...
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Just a few months ago, footballer-turned-broadcaster Gary Lineker was filling front pages for all the wrong reasons. The presenter became embroiled in a row over BBC impartiality following comments made on Twitter over the government’s migration policy. Briefly suspended from his flagship show Match of the Day, he was returned...
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Warwickshire’s Windrush migrants have been celebrated in a new exhibition, which coincided with June’s Windrush Day. The Day marks the anniversary of the HMT Empire Windrush arriving on British shores in Essex, which took place 75 years ago. The ship carried more than 1000 migrants who took up work during...
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Don’t get me wrong, I like Rylan (Clark that is – he has come to be known mononymously like Madonna or Jesus). He is engaging and great at what he does. In fact, being the master of entertainment programmes he is, I am surprised he didn’t get the Big Brother...
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28 July will mark one year since the eyes of the Commonwealth and wider world were set on Birmingham. For ten days, the 2022 Games enraptured the city and its global audience. And I know, because I was there. It was fun from start to finish, a celebration of all...
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It is easy to look back on the 2012 London Olympics with rose-tinted glasses, not least for its now sadly abandoned vision of our national story. But as far as Britain’s cycling prowess is concerned, they were truly heady days. There were 12 medals for Great Britain across the road...
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It had been nine hours, and yet there was still little more than a few complaints and grimaces. I was at Wimbledon, for the fifth time, but on this occasion everything had just gone, well, wrong. For those who have never had the bizarre pleasure, the prestigious tennis tournament still...
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