Motown Magic comes to Sheffield …
1
Jul
… Saturday night, June 30, in the city’s Botanical Gardens. Then we all went home.
Category Archives: arts
Roger Waters on Palestine
18
May
I’ve admired Pink Floyd for over fifty years, since 1967’s Piper at the Gates of Dawn, but for most of that time neither knew nor cared what their politics were. That they were kind of radical in a petit-bourgeois way … Read More »
Loveliest of trees, the cherry now
23
Apr
They say Housman was clinically depressed when he penned the sixty-three poems of his anthology, A Shropshire Lad. But isn’t depression an entry level requirement for poets? Loveliest of trees is the best known poem from those blue remembered hills … Read More »
Steve McCurry in Taipei
31
Mar
Unsurprised is not unthrilled though. Given my love of photography and travel – including the Afghanistan and Rajasthan of his most mesmerising images – McCurry’s subjects speak to me more directly, more fully and more durably than those of any … Read More »
Waters and Eno on Israel and Nick Cave
2
Dec
This from the Pitchfork music site two weeks ago: In a recent press conference, Nick Cave explained his decision to play concerts in Tel Aviv … He said he “loves Israel”, noting that musicians performing there all “have to go through a public … Read More »
Hello Mr Lennon
12
Sep
I think Marco – his comment appeared below a Youtube clip featuring Al Pacino speaking of the time he met John Lennon – must be American. In which case ‘Strawberry fields’ refers to a small part of Central Park dedicated … Read More »
TV Review: Broken
2
Jul
Michael would you fuck me? Eh? You heard. [long pause] I can’t .. [long pause] .. I can’t. I’m sure it would be a wonderful experience, Roz. But I can’t. What Roz Demichel, forty-five year old mother of three, is proposing … Read More »
The Handmaid’s Tale
29
May
Over the years I’ve twice begun this dystopian feminist vision, and twice given up on it – a thing I rarely do with a novel – as woodenly predictable. Seventeenth century Massachusetts garb and post holocaust premise don’t help, striking … Read More »
Film Review: The Handmaiden
19
Apr
But for its thoroughly (post) modern approach to temporal sequencing, the Handmaiden could be placed squarely within the Canterbury Tales and Arabian Nights tradition of storytelling, not least for its sexual explicitness and moral point scoring. Set in early twentieth … Read More »
English wit: saucy, surreal or bathetic?
24
Feb
Is there a quintessentially English brand of humour? One we specialise in and can fairly be held to encapsulate, or at least betray something important about, our national psyche? It used to be said that our staple is saucy suggestion. It … Read More »