Raybeard
My blogs
| Gender | Male |
|---|---|
| Occupation | Retired |
| Location | Sussex, United Kingdom |
| Introduction | 76 year-old, sensitive, gay, single (never had partner), secularist, not well-off financially, non-gregarious (but wish was better at socialising), vegan (well, 95% + 5% veggie), passionate animal lover, environmentally aware (and deeply concerned), news-junkie, pro-EU enthusiast and proud 'remoaner', pogonophile, teetotaler, n/s. |
| Interests | Literature (incl poetry), music (most types), cinema, theatre, (partic. Pinter, Stoppard, Ayckbourn, Bennett, Becket, Tennessee Williams, Ibsen), radio listening, playing piano, Languages, (esp., French, German, Spanish, ), Astronomy, Philosophy, running/jogging (when I can), walking |
| Favorite Movies | Most films of -, Kubrick, Hitchcock, David Lean, Merchant/Ivory, Woody Allen, Mike Leigh, David Lynch, Christopher Guest, Coen Brothers, Jim Jarmusch, Scorsese, Tarantino, Christopher Nolan, Lars von Trier, Haneke, Fellini, Antonioni, Bunuel, Laurel & Hardy, Marx Brothers, Jacques Tati, Monty Python, -, -, -, 2001, Gone with the Wind, Citizen Kane, Rebecca, Strangers on a Train, Man Who Knew Too Much (1956), North by North West, Psycho, The Birds, Torn Curtain, Henry V (Olivier), Richard III (Olivier), Death in Venice, Go-Between, Clockwork Orange, Godfather (Part 1), Great Gatsby, High Society, Singin' in the Rain, Top Hat, Easter Parade, Hans Christian Andersen, Time Machine (1960), Forbidden Planet, Streetcar Named Desire, Oklahoma!, King & I, My Fair Lady, Carry on Camping, Chitty Chitty Bang Bang, Charge of the Light Brigade (1968), Oliver!, Scrooge, Women in Love, Music Lovers, War & Peace (Bondarchuk), Oh What a Lovely War, Theatre of Blood, Abominable Dr Phibes, O Lucky Man, Carrie, Jaws, Duel, Marathon Man, La Nuit Americaine ('Day for Night' - Truffaut), Murder on Orient Express, Plenty, Network, Outrageous, Rocky Horror Picture Show, Picnic at Hanging Rock, Railway Children, Don't Look Now, Sleuth(1972), Alien, The Thing (1982), Take the Money and Run, Sleeper, Annie Hall, Manhattan, Hannah & Her Sisters, Bullets Over Broadway, Everybody Says I Love You, Bugsy Malone, Three Women, King of Comedy, High Hopes, Life is Sweet, Blue Velvet, Funny Bones, Shallow Grave, Four Weddings & a Funeral, Peter's Friends, Carrington, L.A. Confidential, Glengarry Glen Ross, The Player, Brazil, Fargo, Big Lebowski, Hudsucker Proxy, Blair Witch Project, Moulin Rouge (Buhrmann), Chicago, Brokeback Mountain, Memento, Best in Show, Mighty Wind, Austin Powers series, Final Destination series, The Hours, Notes on a Scandal, History Boys, Happy-Go-Lucky, Mamma Mia!, Inception, Hugo |
| Favorite Music | Bach & Beethoven - just about everything from these two., Mozart (partic. the piano concertos and much of the chamber music though less keen on the operas - oh those tiresome recitatives!). Other composers - Schubert, Handel, Haydn, Tchaikovsky, Mahler, Puccini, R.Strauss, Shostakovich, Stravinsky, Bartok, Vaughan Williams, - (note absence of Bruckner as well as Verdi and Wagner, though quite like selected 'sections' of these last two), Sinatra, Crosby, Tony Bennett, Bobby Darin, Peggy Lee, Rosemary Clooney, Doris Day, Blossom Dearie, Ella F., Nat King Cole, Alma Cogan, Matt Monro, Val Doonican, Beatles (together and later individually), Dusty Springfield, Petula Clark, Hollies, Kinks, Seekers, Status Quo, Supremes, Carpenters, Simon & Garfunkel/Paul Simon, Barbra S., Carly Simon, Tina Turner, Abba, Queen, Kate Bush, Madonna, Pet Shop Boys, Elton John, Kylie Minogue, k d lang, Dolly P., Bette Midler, Liza M., Eurythmics, Blur, Pulp, McFly, Fratellis, Mika, Scissor Sisters, Elbow, Amy Winehouse, -, -, -, Rodgers & Hart/Hammerstein, Lerner & Loewe, Gershwin, Kander & Ebb, Frank Loesser, Cole Porter, Irving Berlin, Jerry Herman, Bacharach & David, Boublil & Schoenberg, Stephen Sondheim, Andrew Lloyd Webber, -, -, -, Ennio Morricone, Nino Rota, Ron Goodwin |
| Favorite Books | Shakespeare, Tolstoy, Dostoyevsky, Dickens, Austen, Brontes, George Eliot, Hardy, Trollope, Henry James, Galsworthy, Somerset Maugham, D.H. Lawrence, Proust, H.G.Wells, Arnold Bennett, Patrick White, John Steinbeck, James Baldwin, Isaac Asimov, Arthur C. Clarke, Maya Angelou, John Mortimer, Iris Murdoch, Daphne du Maurier, Doris Lessing, Gore Vidal, Patricia Highsmith, Stephen King, Joanne Harris, Vikram Seth, Sebastian Faulks, Ian Rankin, Richard Dawkins. |