That would be Citizen Kane then. I love it because it is one of the few classic films where the technique does not overwhelm the narrative. Kane is such a great story. And is given life by the 24 year old Orson Welles’ performance. When playing ‘old’, most actors have their hair dyed. Welles’ looks and sounds like an old man, and the sluggish way he moves suggests the weight of years.

I treated myself to watching it, again, this time afresh with subtitles, so it really was something new. The dialogue just crackles, whiplash smart, but with scenes of great poignancy, particularly Agnes Moorhead’s scene as she gives her son away, and Edward Everett Sloane’s recollection of a girl he glimpsed once on a ferry half a century before.

Welles just succeeded with everything he tried – those fake newsreels, the March Of Time obituary, the deep focus shots, the cutaways, especially the wedding breakfast, 10 years of marriage distilled into a few minutes, the opera catastrophe… It is all done with such bravado. And that dialogue “If I hadn’t been rich, I might have been a truly great man”… “I run a couple of newspapers, what do you do?”… “Old age, the only disease you don’t look forward to being cured of”.

He teases great performances out of the entire cast, largely unknown to cinema audiences. It got me thinking about actor’s career’s: George Coulouris is memorable as Thatcher, Kane’s guardian. So after 1941, and playing a substantial role in what many still regard as the Greatest Film Ever Made, he returned to the UK for parts in Hancock’s Half Hour, Lord Peter Wimsey and Percy’s Progress. But I digress…

Pauline Kael tried to diminish Welles’ contribution to the script, but latterly research has shown his hands-on involvement, which does not take anything away from co-writer Herman Mankiewicz.

It just flows so perfectly, the framing of the shots, the sets, the composition. The technique is never overplayed, and everything just fits, slotting in so perfectly. It rewards with repeated viewings. And credit to Alan Yentob for his two part Welles’ Arena profile, which you can still catch on IPlayer.

Every decade Sight & Sound magazine conducted its poll, and for five decades, Kane reigned, until it was eclipsed by Vertigo in 2012. Then in 2022, Jeanne Dielman, 23 Quai Du Commerce, 1080 Bruxelles stole the top spot. I haven’t seen it, neither had any of my film critic colleagues. And it was largely conspicuous in its absence from the Directors’ Poll.

Times change, aesthetic appreciation alters… I just wish I would live long enough to see whether Citizen Kane returns to its rightful place as GFEM. If you haven’t seen it, do. If you have seen it, watch it again, and marvel…

For Welles, of course, the tragedy is that you come off the blocks at 24 and make the GFEM. It can only be downhill from there. Although of course, there were still further triumphs – he was heartbroken at the butchery committed on Magnificent Ambersons, but bounced back with Touch Of Evil, F For Fake and his own personal favourite, Chimes At Midnight.

For too long he frittered his talent away, trying to rustle up funds for film projects, as he told Alan Yentob “it’s 2% making the film, and 98% hustling”. But much as he may want to be remembered for others, it is always Kane which you come back to. It is the Rosetta Stone… it is in the DNA of every major film maker… It needs no introduction, it will never be forgotten. It is Citizen Kane.

The Hack. Dear God, how bad can it be when a seven-part (seven hour) TV series about how wonderful The Guardian is in its search for truth and highlighting the paper’s crusading virtues gets only two stars – in The Guardian! Lacking everything the last crusading TV drama ITV did on the Post Office scandal, The Hack is worth watching for all the wrong reasons. Anyone with a crumb of knowledge about the media knew that News International were very bad people who did very bad things, but as drama The Hack is like lingering on a “Your call matters to us…” loop.

Lots of snatched conversations on mobile phones… David Tennant doing that - by now really irritating - breaking the fourth wall, and a cast of characters you needed an Index to keep with. It was ‘grown up’ drama for idiots – you could spot anyone from News International because they all looked like Laurence Olivier in Marathon Man. That’s aside from the smug worthiness. And when you look at some of the cast mustered on the Guardian’s ‘good’ side – Rottweiler Alastair Campbell… the egregious Tom Watson MP… child abuser Max Clifford…

What set out to be All The President’s Men ends up as Confessions Of An Investigative Journalist (With Issues), all that was missing was Robin Askwith.

Reminiscing with my friend and colleague Angie Errigo about the happy hours we spent being interviewed on the Radio 2 Arts Programme by Sheridan Morley. He was always so very nice to me when I contributed, and a very good listener. He was so jolly and full of bonhomie, I later learned he suffered from terrible depression.

Dipping into his autobiography is well worth your effort: he remembers his grandmother telling Noel Coward about home delivery birthing “Disgusting, just like those African women who used to give birth behind trees… I never thought it would come to Berkshire”.

His dad Robert was a stalwart of British cinema, but in 1940 was summoned to an office in Reading asked how he would like to contribute to the war effort “I would quite like to sit in a small office in Reading asking other people what they would most like to do in uniform” replied Robert

Sheridan also had endless memories of John Gielgud ‘s dropped bricks, like the time he was walking along Piccadilly and bumping into Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher “Where are you living now?” “No.10 Downing Street” “Oh you women, always so clever at buying the right sort of property. I never seem to meet a really good estate agent”

He remembers Coral Browne being approached by a floorwalker at Fortnum & Mason and being asked “And what might madam’s pleasure be this morning?” “Well dearie, my pleasure would be a good fuck but I’ve actually come in for a pound of grapes”.

I miss the money of course, but I miss being asked my opinion on something I actually knew something about. I miss going up to the Arts Programme offices, stacked high with unread books “for review” to which I regularly helped myself. And although I never knew him well, I miss Sheridan’s knowledge and his boundless enthusiasm.

The 20^th Century seems a long time ago for this freelance journalist…

Oh you know, some nights you just want comfort viewing. I don’t do subscription channels, but with You Tube/ I Player/ DVDs, I always have enough to choose from.

So what was it to be? A worthy cinema classic? A new TV thriller? A thought-provoking documentary? No, it was Saturday night, and I thought what I really fancy is Guns Of Navarone, which is what I plumped for.

Must have seen it, what, half a dozen times? On initial release, television showings, DVD… Have to say it still packs a punch, suspenseful even though we know that – spoiler ending – those big guns do get destroyed.

Just looking at the boat crashing on the rocks, and watching the cast immersed in thousands of gallons of water. And the seagull shooting out of the cliff.

I remember loving it in the cinema, growing up on a diet of war picture comics and films (Reach For The Sky, Dam Busters, Cruel Sea) but they were all black & what: Guns Of Navarone offered WWII in colour! And they moved, all those Stukas, E-Boats and tanks.

Of course now you look at it with an adult eye: thecasting of James Darren was intended to bring in a teenage audience, a la Ricky nelson in Rio Bravo. And weren’t some of these desperadoes a little bit… old? I still love Gregory Peck (born 1916) addressing David Niven (born 1910) as “son”.

Years later I met Peck’s daughter Cecilia at an event. I inquired on her current career and she told me of the pioneering documentaries she had made of how women were exploited. I somehow sensed she wasn’t in the mood for a chat about The Guns Of Navarone.

I reckon I’ll leave it for a few year before returning to the island of Navarone.I always smile when I remember my friend David Brook visiting an industrial estate the morning after the film had been on TV, and the jobsworth remarking about the fictional film “Course you know, it wasn’t true, ‘cos I was there”.

Have to say The Guns Of Navarone whetted my appretite for those big screen, all colour epics I devoured as a kid, fortunately I now have The Alamo, The Great Escape and Zulu on DVD.

One of only two bands I wish I’d seen live were The Beatles. The other was the Bonzo Dog Band, I was in from The Intro (& Outro) from the release of the Gorilla LP in 1967. As well as the wonderful Neil Innes and ‘Legs’ Larry Smith, the Bonzos also numbered the best-named bassist ever: Vernon Dudley Bohay-Nowell.

Much of their early repertoire came from old 78s they’d pick up and loved such as this, originally recorded by ‘The Savoy Havana Band (Vocal Ramon Newton)’ in 1924:

“I gave my love a lemon, she let me hold her hand/ When I brought an orange, we kissed beneath the band/ When I brought an apple she hugged me with all her might/ I’m gonna bring a watermelon to my girl tonight…!”

I met the late Viv Stanshall twice, the first time at his home in North London, floor to ceiling with “items” I wish I could remember. Reflecting on the Bonzos, He said his most memorable gig was supporting Sly & the Family Stone on the band’s only US tour. God alone know what Sly’s audience made of the Bonzos, particularly as their equipment had been held up at customs and the British band had to perform their entire set through megaphones!

On their only American tour, the Bonzo Dog Band were trawling across a desert when they were pulled over by a Highway Patrolman. Viewing the colourfully-clad Brits in a van crammed with their stage items - inflatable figures, duck’s hats, rabbit heads etc, the cop muttered “Jeez, how are you guys going to get by in the States?” only to have Viv Stanshall respond from the back “Good manners, dear boy, good manners…”

Postmen, pretend you’re a tennis pro by fist-pumping to nobody in particular every time you successfully deliver a letter.

I reckon I could knock out a heron, but could probably only stun an ostrich with a right hook. Have any other readers had such meaningful thoughts during a funeral?

They say that an area of rainforest equivalent to the size of Wales is dug up every day. If its that easy who don’t they simply dig up Wales? It would only take a day and in its place they could build a car park for people visiting Cheshire.

Advice to shampoo and conditioner makers: ensure we have to wear our glasses in the shower by putting your products in identical-looking bottles ad using 4-point font size on the labels.

My husband believes you should live every day as though it is your last. Consequently he has spent the last 17 years lying on his bed, attached to a saline drip wearing an oxygen mask and with a rubber tube stuck up his arse.

I was hoping you could help by printing the following message for my husband who popped out for a pint of milk two years ago and hasn’t returned ‘Barry, if there’s no silver top, semi-skimmed will do’.

And tomorrow, readers, I hope I will be able to include visuals on this page (That’s me, not Viz magazine…)

Only later did I appreciate the role a minor MP played in the RAF victory of 1940. The prevailing view of the 1930s was the “the bomber will always get through”, which is where our resources should go. Hugh Dowding, Head of Fighter Command, disagreed, and argued that resources should go into fighter production.

In 1936, Thomas Inskip was appointed Minister For The Co-Ordination Of Defence. Prior to that, he was best known for his Parliamentary objections to a new edition of The Book Of Common Prayer. In his new job, Inskip reasoned that defence should be a priority, and as fighters were cheaper to produce than bombers, that’s where the money should go. Which, mercifully, in that tumultuous summer of 1940 there were – just - enough Spitfires and Hurricanes to thwart the Luftwaffe.

Inevitably I’d watch the 1969 film of The Battle Of Britain. An all-star cast, more Spitfires and Hurricanes than you can shake a stick at. I always admired Laurence Olivier’s performance as Dowding, the man who could have lost the war in a week. Dowding is confronted by a Minister about the claims his pilots are making. “Frankly unbelievable, bad for propaganda”. Olivier responds: “I’m not very interested in… propaganda” (he issues the word like a Bishop handling a prophylactic) “If I’m right, they’ll give up. If I’m wrong, they’ll be in London in a week”.

I got disenchanted with the rejection and also all that new technology meant there new Firsts coming in every day. If there is sufficient interest I am happy to post odds and ends from the manuscript as and when.