Spam, spam, spam

AT this year's Glastonbury Festival, Attila the Stockbroker (John "Basil" Baine, LaB 68-75) takes the mickey out of unsolicited emails, with a sideswipe at the spam fritters he had to eat at school (2½ minutes):

Gallant lady

DOES anyone have information about the service career of Major Mary Satchell (Hertford 25-33) who joined Queen Alexandra's Imperial Military Nursing Service in 1940 and sadly died on VE day, 8 May 1945? Andrew Harding (ThA 58-65), a retired GP and talented artist who's working on a series of paintings of Old Blues in the medical and nursing services during World War Two, would like to hear it. Contact him here.

Obvious bad hat

THESE climate change sceptics have got Roger Highfield (MdB 69-75) bang to rights:

When these biased findings hit the media they go through publications such as "New Scientist Magazine," which is edited by Dr. Roger Highfield, a strong global warming advocate who received an elite education at the private "Christ's Hospital" school set up by Royalty and Freemasons, and which gets funding from all sorts of dubious charities.

Which Old Blue…?

A recycled quiz.

Accomplished nonchalance

THIRTY seconds of jazz percussionist James Maddren (ThA, GrW 98-05):



Want more? Try five minutes with the George Hogg Quartet, of which James is 25%:

"You need to draw people in"

TODAY'S Daily Mail invites Bruce Grindlay (Director of Music 01-09) to respond to the Bishop of Croydon's strictures on Christmas carols.

Getting things done

MATTHEW KIMBERLEY (PeB, MaA 91-98) spells it out.

51 more people have been added to the links page during November.

Unpalatable blessings

IN this week's Church Times, the Rev David Bryant (MdA 46-54) thinks over his days at CH.

Best possible Tace

A MASSAGE therapist for horses, dogs and humans, Tace Allen (BaA 89-96) has worked on tour with the cast and crew of Channel 4's Scrapheap Challenge, Incubus, Blazin' Squad, Will Young and Bryan May of Queen - not forgetting the Tweenies Live and Noddy Tours. Currently she's Team GB's sports massage therapist for the IFCS World Dog Agility Championships. Her website is here.

Curiosity, compassion, kindness

PUBLISHER turned literary agent William Miller (LaB 44-53), once jailed for revealing official secrets, has died at 75. Here's his Guardian obituary, plus a tribute by Naim Attallah. (UPDATE: an important correction.)

Journey through a life

BBC Online warmly commends the new book of photos by Chris Steele-Perkins (MdB 56-65). (Among others praising it are Michael Palin, Damon Albarn, Lee Hall, etc.)

Individuality and bravura

NINE remarkable paintings of historic buildings by Nick Plumley (Horsham Staff 67-87, Archivist/Curator until 01).

Bovver boy

A BLOOD-spattered tribute to Bovver, the character played by Leo Gregory (MdA 90-95) in the 2005 movie Green Street (3½ minutes):

Needs must

AT a dinner in New York last month, reported here, the Headmaster announced that

up to 92 new full fee students would be carefully phased in over the next five years in order to help fill the present gap between income and expenditure. He explained that the new full fee students would be admitted at ages 11 and 13 and in the Deputy Grecian year and would be spread evenly among the sixteen Avenue houses and two Grecians' houses. He added that the program was easily reversible once the current cash flow shortage was resolved.

The discussion begins…

Takes all sorts

WHY play your cello in caves, on mountains and on top of cathedrals? Three years ago "extreme cellist" Jeremy Dawson (LaB, LaA 87-94) spoke frankly about his compulsion.

A mentor remembered

THE distinguished mathematician Sir Christopher Zeeman (MdB 34-43) had this to say in The Guardian last week about the late Shaun Wylie, big gun at Bletchley Park and later at GCHQ:

I first went to the lectures on topology by Shaun Wylie to find out what the word meant, and was captured by his enthusiasm. Eventually he supervised my PhD thesis on the subject.

My father had died shortly after I was born, and I had always missed not having one, but Shaun filled that role. He taught me not only about mathematics but also about people, and becoming a serious academic. He was one of the finest people I have ever met.

It must be true, it's in the Mail on Sunday

NOT only has CH shut down due to swine flu, but Big School seems to be attacking Dining Hall…

Repeated today

…if you're quick, that is: Holly Walsh (LHB 92-99) was on The News Quiz on Radio 4 yesterday, and the repeat's coming up at 12.30pm. (Failing that, there's always BBC iPlayer.)

Home turf

BOSTON MANOR is the third album from jazzman Jonny Boston (LaA 82-89).

Known Unto God

AS a wreath is laid once more on the Tomb of the Unknown Warrior - with, for the first time, none of his fellow Great War combatants to witness it - let's remember our own small piece of the story: it was Lt-Col Henry Williams (CH c. 1905-14) who arranged for the exhumation of four unidentified soldiers from the areas of the Somme, Aisne, Arras and Ypres, one of whom was chosen to lie in the Abbey tomb.

Exuberant character

PIONEERING surgeon Simon Cox (LaA 49-59) earns a glowing obituary (be sure to read the comments too).

The inventor's life

…as depicted in the opening 7½ minutes of The Dam Busters (1954), with Michael Redgrave as Barnes Wallis (Wd VII, PeA 1900-04, Treasurer 57-70):

Luminous craft

THERE are beauties to be found on the website of stained glass artist Karim Yasamee (MdB 69-76).

What does Europe look like?

IF anyone knows, Michael Wintle (MdA 62-70) does.

Three generations

AN Old Blue herself, mother of two more (one of them famous) and grandmother of two more: Molly Snow (Florence Maria Eccles, 5's 22-28) has passed away at the age of 98, as Kerren Simmonds (2's 57-66) reports.

Condolences to her family, and to all who miss her.

Intervention-free, pain-free

"I'M a doctor so I knew what there was to be frightened of" - Clare Thormod (4's 75-82) talks about the birth of her son James in 1995 on this page about the Gentle Birth Method.

Soundscape

SHE didn't write this poem and she's not the person reading it, but everything else we hear in this 5½-minute recording is the work of Fari Bradley (BaB 85-92):

O'er hill and down dale

FRANKMUSIK, the pop star who undoubtedly is an Old Blue (Vincent Turner, MaA & GrE 97-04) embarked on his winter tour of the UK yesterday.

A salutary twist to the jobs market

SINCE taking voluntary redundancy from his management consultant job last December, Tim Mukasa (MdA 91-98) has created Freelance Students, "the easiest and most effective way for businesses and private individuals…to connect with talented, enthusiastic and ambitious students for one-off jobs, short-term projects and internships." Recent graduates are welcome too. Front page of the site is a collaborative blog with careers advice and more besides, and now there are forums as well. KillerStartups.com gives it all a positive review.

Our prophet

HUGH SACKER (ColA 35-43), also known as The Prophet Obol, describes his blog as "the last chance saloon of the human species." Composed between June 2005 and October 2006, it culminates with this earnest appeal to the world.

Onward and upward

CONGRATS to Sebastian Scotney (ColB 66-73) whose 9½-month-old LondonJazz has just been hailed by LastMinute.com as one of the capital's Top 10 Blogs.

Welcome

A WARM welcome to everyone arriving here via the link in the latest edition of the CHOBA email newsletter. Hope you find something to interest you.

If you know of any websites, web pages or online videos that would fill some of the gaps in this blog's coverage of Old Blues and other members of the worldwide CH family (I'm well aware of the male-female imbalance and the recent scarcity of items about younger OBs), please let me know.

Not ours?

MANY CH pupils, we're told, believe chart-topper and Brit Award winner Taio Cruz is an Old Blue. But is he?

It's true his name appears on Wikipedia's list of Old Blues, but his own Wikipedia entry says nothing about the school.

Several young Old Blues who would have been contemporary with him at CH have said they don't remember him, and the administrator of the CH Association (now renamed CHOBA) can find no trace of him in the records under either of his supposed "real names", Tayo Oluwaseyi Cruz da Silva and Adetayo Ayowale Cruz Onile-Ere.

Moreover he has this to say about his schooldays "in rural Sussex":

"At that age I didn't even have any concept of colour… It's only now that I look back and think 'Oh, I was pretty much the only black kid in the whole school'".

Doesn't sound much like CH to me.

If anyone reading this is aware of hard evidence that Taio Cruz is indeed an Old Blue, please share it. If not, perhaps it's time we laid this appealing myth to rest.

At Churchill's side

MONDAY evening brings the British premiere (BBC Two, 8.30pm) of Into The Storm, the double-Emmy-Award-winning drama about Winston Churchill in wartime, with James D'Arcy (LaA 84-91) - shown here with Janet McTeer as Clementine Churchill - playing Winston's close aide Jock Colville.

Hertford thespians

THIS fascinating Unofficial Forum thread, mainly about notable and/or interesting women educated at CH Hertford, has thrown up no fewer than five professional actresses: Pam Abas (Ross, 1's 36-43), best known for playing the Mother Superior in Clint Eastwood's Bronco Billy; Andrée Evans (4's 42-49), whose most recent screen credit was in My Spy Family last year; D Rosh Wright (Debbie Stone, 1's 57-66), a latecomer to the stage after a high-flying nursing career; Jane Hayward (1's, 2's 61-68), whose first recorded film appearance was in Kubrick's 2001: A Space Odyssey; and Louise Winstone (4's 77-83), already known to Houseyblog readers.

The octogenarian lifestyle

PIPE-SMOKING, knitting, gardening, a book or two, and heaps of world-class music-making: it seems to suit Sir Colin Davis (ThB 38-44).

Ibsen in Arundel

ALL next week at the Priory Playhouse, the Arundel Players are staging Ibsen's Hedda Gabler under director Paul Ward (Staff 91-04). He says "I have in recent times had a lot more to do with fairly frothy comedies. I wanted something rather meatier!" Learn more here and here.

55 more people have been added to the links page during October.

Protest is legal

SOMEONE should tell the police, suggests Mark Thomas (ColB 74-81), seen here on the right (for once).

They bred 'em tough in Lamb A

A PLEASINGLY unorthodox portrait photo of motorcyclist Jon Watson-Miller (LaA 72-79) has a story attached:

Jon … rode 5,200 miles of the Paris-Dakar Rally with a broken foot, finally retiring after a further fall damaged the tendons in his other foot. He managed to get the bike upright, remount and ride 20km to the end of the stage where he received medical attention.

No wonder he says he set up his motorcycle workshop because:

Due to no fault of his own (yeah right), crashing happened with monotonous regularity and Jon realised that he had so many BMW bits left over he may as well try and get some of his money back.

Sponsor our pilgrim

WELL on his way to Rome, Joshua Bell (PeA, GrW 02-09) is running short of funds and needs our help (as if being pepper sprayed weren't bad enough).

More to come

LIZZIE BALLAGHER (Glen, 4's 61-67), who as Elizabeth Gibson had six novels published in the Eighties and Nineties, now has a website - and three more novels in the pipeline.

A word from the chief

REPUTEDLY the highest-paid NHS official in Wales, Hugh Ross (MaB, ColB 64-71), chief executive of Cardiff and Vale NHS Trust, gave this likeable interview in April (3 minutes):

No way in

TERM began badly at Solefield School, Sevenoaks, where Dougal Philps (Staff 91-97) is head.

Ch-ch-ch-changes

IS the Christ's Hospital Association about to metamorphose?

(Update: yes, it is.)

Scilly parishers

THE fourth series of An Island Parish, produced and narrated by Nigel Farrell (MdA 62-70), is currently going out on BBC Two on Monday evenings at 7 pm (repeated on Wednesday nights after midnight, and seemingly repeated again on BBC One the following Monday night, even later).

Dynamo in a bow tie

HIGHLIGHTS from last year's memorial service for the leading state school headteacher and educationalist Michael Marland (ThA 44-53) (9½ minutes):

"Our most important activity"

IN 1998 Elizabeth Tucker (Headmistress 72-82, Governor) was seriously injured in a road accident in Africa. Two years later she reflected on the experience of being prayed for.

Take warning

POP historian Vernon Joynson (ThA 62-71) can ruin your life.

Can we move beyond enmity?

AS the 7/7 memorial was unveiled in July, the director of St Ethelburga's Centre for Reconciliation and Peace, Simon Keyes (MdA 65-71), shared his thoughts.

Maximise your pleasure

MY eyesight never won any prizes. As a result this blog is written and laid out with "Text Size" in my View menu set at "Larger".

If at times the layout strikes you as odd or unlovely, switch your text size to "Larger" to witness a miracle of order, balance and harmony.

Darwin, faith and ethics

RIGHT and wrong ways of applying evolutionary theory to human behaviour, ethics and religion are examined by Philip Kitcher (PeA 58-66), philosopher of science (13 minutes):

Naught for their comfort

WHEN the storm over MPs' expenses started brewing, The Times went to Vincent Coughlin QC (PeB 68-75) for a legal view.

Spiritual revolutionary

CAN'T embed this 5-minute video, but it's worth the detour: David Starkey introduces Catholic martyr Edmund Campion, reputedly one of CH's earliest pupils.

More stressed than anyone knew

AN inquest in Oxford hears details of the tragic death of John Ddungu (MaA, GrE 05-07). John's mother's response is here.

My profound sympathy to all who loved him.

The illusion of flying

TWO minutes with the Heliosphere, best-known creation of the Dream Engine performance company formed by the late Tim Petter (LaB 71-76):

Voice of the trenches remembered

MCC cricketer, cricket administrator and renowned ex-Warden of Radley Dennis Silk (MaA 42-50, Senior Grecian), right, is to give a public lecture at CH next month on his friend Siegfried Sassoon, above.

Pedagogue's progeny

BOTH the offspring of Dr Christopher Stace (Horsham Staff 65-73) have made their mark in the world: Wesley Stace is well known as "gangsta folk" singer-songwriter John Wesley Harding and writes best-selling novels under his own name, while Melanie Stace is a singer, dancer and actress who spent six years co-presenting The Generation Game.