I had to give up on the film Gravity after fifteen minutes. Not a patch on Speed.

I have been looking at the two late-Fifties volumes by Royal Canadian Air Force combined by Penguin Books UK as Physical Fitness (1964). A diagram shows that a well-exercised body is more efficient than a petrol engine.

MOG AND THE KITTEN A note on Ecstasy (1933). christopherhawtree.com/films.html

Successive evenings Brighton Dome. First, London Symphony Orchestra Leila Josefowicz rousing in Stravinsky's violin concerto; second, Castalian Quartet joined by Sheku Kanneh-Mason who, solo, played the Suite by Natalie Klouda - as marvellously varied as Schubert quintet D956. Ollie Sykes sue shanks

How could anybody set store by what footballer Gary Lineker has to say when he promotes ultra-processed WalkersCrisps?

To Brighton Dome for Anoushka Shankar's very enjoyable New Dawn sitar concert with multi-instrumentist jazz trio who had to speak on her behalf because she had lost her voice after joining a Festival audience in Yoko Ono's participatory "Scream".

On returning from Anoushka Shankar's concert there was time for Groucho as Rufus T. Firefly in Duck Soup which Mussolini banned. I shouldn't be surprised if Trump does so, for it has sport with thr subject of... tafiffs. And its overarching subject of war is as potent as ever.

To a congenial Walrus pub in Brighton for Robert Cohen in James Callas Ball's new, three-hander play The Flat Earthers set in a pub. Wittily humane, its meeting of conspiracy theorists will surely be seen around, I mean across the world - even in Hove, subject of a running gag

To New Venture Theatre for its sold-out run of the Richard Eyre take on Ibsen's Ghosts, which made me gasp all the more: it turned out to be acting debut of Rob Shepherd who was as good as the rest of the excellent cast. Shall catch up with the disc of Judi Dench in it.

To Towner Eastbourne paintings and other work gathered as Sussex Modernism. A good number of late-Twenties views of the sea from Portslade by David Jones. I did not know Lee Miller's photograph of Saul Steinberg posed, his pen seeming to draw Long Man of Wilmington on the hill.

The man in headphones is protected from the noise he makes with a crisp packet.

A remarkable article about a terrible crime. This reconstruction should be available on the NHS rather than crowdfunded. Ollie Sykes The Green Party nytimes.com/2025/06/02/wor…

“Desire paths” are trails, usually bypassing a planned path, that reveal the most convenient route somewhere. The people (AKA meanderthals) that tramp along these routes often wear away grass, creating secondary paths. Walk this way for more on desire paths (a thread / tread)...

At the gym somebody mentioned the virtues of apple cider vinegar - especially with the Oedipal ingredient known as "mother".

To the Barn Theatre in Southwick for the opening of its production of Arnold Ridley's The Ghost Train which I had only seen as the 1941 film and as inspiration for Will Hay's Oh! Mr Porter (1937). The 1925 play has its own brio: it speeds up, rather like a train. A great time.

JOIE DE VIVRE A note on the glorious film Love Me Tonight (1932) for which Rodgers and Hart wrote the songs. It should be better known. christopherhawtree.com/films.html

To the announcement yesterday evening of Brighton Philharmonic Orchestra's autumn/winter season, which has many pleasingly unexpected items. Be sure to book (open to the public a week today). Yesterday's convivial gathering, with Joanna MacGregor, included percussionists and Reich's "Clapping".

Forty years agter the Collected Poems of Stevie Smith !975) came a new one (2015), which has many more drawings and poems which were either rounded up for Me Again or uncollected - including those from Night and Day magazine in 1937. She is terrific. Well produced by Faber Books