Category Archives: Review

Football Review: Manchester City vs Real Madrid 17th May 2023

Posted on May 22, 2023 by odeboyz

Expectations were sky high. Two giants of European football playing in the semi-finals of the Champions League. What could possibly go wrong? Real Madrid froze. The anticipated titanic match between “galácticos” became a mismatch. Real relied on their world class … Continue reading →

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An early Bob Dylan review

Posted on May 15, 2023 by odeboyz

Apr. 13, 1963 – Bob Dylan, a folk musician, gave a well-received program of his own compositions at New York’s Town Hall last night. Mr. Dylan is 21 years old, hails from Hibbing, Minn., and looks like a cross between … Continue reading →

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Book Review: Percival Everett ~ The Trees (2022)

Posted on May 4, 2023 by odeboyz

Background The 1955 depraved murder of Emmett Till, aged 14, by racists in Mississippi was shocking but not freakishly so.1 What was unique was his mother allowing mourners to see his mutilated body in an open casket. The outrage became … Continue reading →

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Book Review: Katy Brent ~ How to kill men and get away with it (2023)

Posted on April 17, 2023 by odeboyz

I fell victim to the dreaded Waterstone’s ‘Buy one and get one half price’ with this one.1 A catchy title and so-called reviews reeled me in like a fish. Describing it as ‘Darkly witty’, ‘Funny, outrageous and thoroughly entertaining’ and … Continue reading →

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Film Review: The Awakening of Motti Wolkenbruch (NetFlix) (2018) (Jewish Swiss comedy – subtitles)

Posted on March 13, 2023 by odeboyz

This Jewish comedy piles cliché on to cliché, which should ruin the film. It doesn’t. It is a clever well-balanced comedy where the principal characters hang together and form a coherent whole. The storyline is basic Jewish humour. An over-bearing … Continue reading →

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Book Review: P G Wodehouse ~ The Inimitable Jeeves (1923)

Posted on March 9, 2023 by odeboyz

It’s the centenary of the first Jeeves novel. Wodehouse created two of the most enduring comedic characters in literature, Jeeves and Bertie Wooster. The novel is a series of linked short stories. They are coherent only in the sense that … Continue reading →

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Film Review: Bank of Dave (NetFlix) (Rory Kinnear) (2023)

Posted on March 2, 2023 by odeboyz

This is the biopic of Dave Fishwick, a self-made millionaire, from Burnley, Lancashire. He lives and works there and is grounded in the community. As a wealthy man he was often asked for loans. No paperwork just a handshake. None … Continue reading →

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The Beatles weren’t a band of brothers: Who’d have thought it?

Posted on February 20, 2023 by odeboyz

If you want a book sympathizing with Paul McCartney as the guy who made the Beatles tick, and portraying George Harrison as a suspicious, less than grateful whiner, this is for you.  Geoff Emerick, Here, There, and Everywhere: My Life Spent … Continue reading →

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Book Review: Richard Russo ~ Nobody’s Fool (1993)

Posted on February 9, 2023 by odeboyz

Ordinary people are fascinating. That insight led to decades of success for Coronation Street and EastEnders. Likewise, Anthony Trollope’s 19th century Palliser series and John Updike’s Rabbit quartet of stunning novels.1 Russo taps into that truth. There’s virtually no sex, … Continue reading →

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Book Review: Michael Dobbs ~ The Reluctant Hero (2010)

Posted on January 12, 2023 by odeboyz

The storyline is preposterous. It depends on a suspension of credulity, which I can’t achieve – not that I tried hard. Astonishingly I finished the book. The only justification for this is that I took it away for Christmas and … Continue reading →

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