When people tell me they can’t stand Dylan, I get it. Really I do. He’s not everyone’s cup of tea. (I know women – white, black, of diverse age – who love Dylan, man and music. None qualify as twenty-four … Read More »
Born in late 1952, my lifelong love affair with The Beatles was pre-ordained. An early sign came when, on a rainswept night in March ’63, a few pals on a council estate on the cusp of Northern Sheffield, and a … Read More »
Brecht is powerful but it’s Michael Rosen who captures our zeitgeist.
THIS POST ALSO FEATURES IN COUNTERPUNCH and in OffGuardian Worthy, sumptuously shot, convincingly acted and not without moments of insight – but a tad leaden. That’s my take on Mike Leigh’s new film, released November 2. I’ll give a more … Read More »
The meaning of life – of love, lust, art and the torn and bleeding heart of Civil War Spain – was ripped out and laid bare last night in this flamenco studded bull roar of a drama at the tiny … Read More »
Fellow SheffieIders from eighteen to eighty-eight – if you want a great night out with live music from top quality musicians who know how to get folk on the floor and dancing, here’s two city bands guaranteed to deliver. Every … Read More »
… Saturday night, June 30, in the city’s Botanical Gardens. Then we all went home.
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 »
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 »
[ezcol_1half] Tuesday night – Ellen of A Dot Hostel, Taipei, messages me. She’s off duty but knows we fly on Thursday, overnighting in Guangzhou to land at a doubtless rainswept Heathrow on Good Friday. How will we spend our last … Read More »