It’s not easy taking on a corporate body better funded and more powerful than yourself. In its small way my nine year battle with Sheffield Hallam University testifies to that. Many aspects of this week’s ITV offering, Mr Bates v … Read More »
Hear Eric Dolphy’s tribute to Monk. From his 1964 album, Out to Lunch, Hat and Beard was an early steel city tune for the day . A fine piece of writing on an undisputed giant of jazz appeared in CounterPunch … Read More »
I’m not in the Socialist Equality Party, hosts of WSWS, and while I respect that entity, have a few bones of contention with its worldview. But if you think Trotskyist groups necessarily reductive in their approach to the arts, think … Read More »
Whether viewed in two dimensions or three, Titanic abounds in clichés. That’s what love stories do. All the good ones anyway; the ones that do what it says on the tin. Think West Side Side Story, aka Romeo and Juliet. … Read More »
Too much to ask, even of a best mate? Tony Curran and Martin Compston in Mayflies I should declare a personal interest. As one taken into care early in life – which is to say, as one who knows what it is … Read More »
… body without mind is brutish; mind without body… is a running away from our double being … Richard Hoggart, Introduction to the 2nd Edition, 1961 Lady Chatterley’s Lover is the last novel by English author D. H. Lawrence, first … Read More »
I spend so much time looking at life’s darkest sides, it gives me immense pleasure to say this is the most delightful film I’ve seen in years. It’s funny, sad, intelligent, grown up, quintessentially English – except when it’s Irish … Read More »
One nation is circling the planet with hundreds of military bases, continually working to destroy any nation who disobeys it, and has spent the 21st century killing people by the millions. It isn’t Russia. It isn’t China. You have to … Read More »
John wrote this in Rishikesh for Prudence Farrow, sister of Mia (aka Mrs Sinatra newly divorced, Mrs Previn in waiting and, most toxically, Mrs Allen in the dim and distant). Prudence was, in Mr Lennon’s opinion, spending too much time … Read More »
Rye, East Sussex, looking down the hill and northward from St Mary’s Church . On this site you don’t just get unerring political analysis leavened with travelogue and stunning nature shots. Oh no. You also get literary debate. To my … Read More »