"Unprovided with original learning, uninformed in the habits of thinking, unskilled in the arts of composition, I resolved to write a blog”
Ferkling through my personal archive (two shoe boxes at the bottom of the cupboard) I came across this reminder of a historically interesting Oxford strike, for union recognition, at the Oxford bookshop and publishing premises of Blackwells. The be-suited man talking to the two earnest pickets, who are listening with rapt attention to his words of wisdom,... Continue Reading →
To ushers quay, to the House of the Dead, wherein Joyce set the most famous of his short stories, “The Dead”. The house is a tall elegant Georgian building with long and equally elegant windows overlooking the river Liffey and the new James Joyce Bridge designed by the Spaniard Santiago Calatrava and of which Joyce... Continue Reading →
I watched “The best Exotic Marigold Hotel” on TV and was touched by the relationship between Maggie Smith who played the wheelchair bound Muriel Donnelly and the untouchable Indian servant woman who swept her room and served her meals. It was more than hotel service. It was whites with native servants; it was a touch... Continue Reading →
I watched “The best Exotic Marigold Hotel” on TV and was touched by the relationship between Maggie Smith who played the wheelchair bound Muriel Donnelly and the untouchable Indian servant woman who swept her room and served her meals. It was more than hotel service. It was whites with native servants; it was a touch... Continue Reading →
I bPáirceanna Flóndrais Séideann na poipini leo Idir na crosa ró ar ró Is áit dúinn: thas ar eitleog ghroi Canann fuisega fós le bri Nach gCluintear i measc gunnai's gleo In Flanders fields the poppies blow Between the crosses, row on row, That mark our place and in the sky The larks, still bravely... Continue Reading →
Joesph Bueys, ex Stuka bomber pilot turned rather Loony professor of Art and acclaimed conceptual/performance artist, collected leftist radicals as bees collect pollen. He thrived on their fresh blood, wanted to display them, encourage them to be creative, give them a platform, develop them, and turn them into honey to feed the left wing communist creative world... Continue Reading →
Is this index card taken from a British Intelligence file during the war of Independence? Is it the real thing? We have an ordinary index card, 6 inches by 4 inches, brown and fragile with age, a rough photograph, cropped from something larger, a description, not very accurate, and the typed legend of remarks, intended... Continue Reading →
Dinner at the Geisha Restaurant with the Chinese Ambassador to Ireland. An eighteen course menu prepared by a team of chefs specially flown in from the city of Hangzhou in the Zhejiang province of China. But wait. The Geisha restaurant? Is that not Japanese? On enquiry it turns out to be a fusion restaurant specialising... Continue Reading →
Nottingham has been sending fighting troops to Ireland for over 800 years. There is a reference in the 1363 Rolls of Edward III calling upon the Sheriff of Nottingham to " select 40 of the best and bravest of Archers in Notts and Derby, to assemble at Liverpool, furnished with bow, arrows and other arms,... Continue Reading →
I bought this book out of curiosity about the role of the British consular service in the emerging colonial development of Africa. I had just finished reading Mario Vargas Llosa’s fictionalised account of another British consular official, namely Sir Roger Casement who was consul to Congo Free State port of Boma in the African Congo... Continue Reading →
There are probably more charity shops in Edinburgh than in any other city in the British Isles. I don’t know why. There just is. On some streets there are more charity shops than ordinary shops. I long ago reached the view that at least one out of every three people you meet in Edinburgh must... Continue Reading →
The Scottish National Portrait Gallery in Edinburgh has re-opened in its dramatic, neo gothic palace on Queen Street. Ruskin would be delighted. It is a rather rambling interior and quite difficult to navigate. I wondered about with nothing really grabbing my interest, until I stumbled upon, entirely by good fortune, the exhibition of war paintings by Sir... Continue Reading →
60 outstanding Picasso’s gathered from around the galleries of the world and chosen to show the influence of Picasso upon Modern British Art and Artists. Placed between, amongst and about the Picasso’s are the works of those he so influenced. Henry Moore and Picasso; David Hockney and Picasso; Francis Bacon and Picasso; Wyndham Lewis and... Continue Reading →
British comedy has never before, been this desperate: "Your boyfriend asked you to piss on him? Ha ha ha ha guffaw guffaw Did you like it? Ha Ha Ha Ha guffaw Ha Ha: He shows a slide of a drawing of a man masturbating using the dead arm and hand of a man in a coffin,... Continue Reading →
This show doesn’t really work. It hasn’t joined the dots together fully, which is a great pity, for the writing is absolutely first class. A real poet of the interweb. If he has a book of poems then I’d buy it and recommend it to anyone I know. I hope he sticks to it. He... Continue Reading →
The Unitarian church of St. Marks, hard by the sheer cliffs of Edinburgh Castle, has an interior, as you would expect of the Unitarians, entirely unadorned, with any religious image. An odd place to listen to Jazz. There, where the altar should be, stands a great glossy black note of a grand piano. The musician... Continue Reading →
I have always had a considerable soft spot for Ruskin. My college days, brief as they were, were spent in Ruskin College Oxford, named for him because of his serious commitment to the teaching of the working classes as outlined in his monthly “letters to the workmen and labourers of Great Brittan” The college was... Continue Reading →
When, a noble laureate, Mario Vargas Llosa, described on the dust jacket as being one of the world's greatest writers, , takes up his pen on a subject you admire and profess to know something off, then your expectations are naturally extremely high. You anticipate new and penetrating insights into the character of Casement, you... Continue Reading →
CLINTON – THE MUSICAL: What a great idea. Sex, power, politics, sex, the white house, sex, lying, sex, impeachment, sex. And what fun they must have had putting together the lyrics and music for this one. They portray Clinton as two persons, or one person with two personalities, or maybe a schizophrenic. Anyway there is... Continue Reading →
Adolf. You can’t go wrong with Adolf. Everyone remains fascinated by the horror of it all, the audacity of it all, the endless history of it all. Sky has a history channel virtually dedicated to NAZI stuff. The Hitler Channel my wife calls it. So throw up a production at the fringe dedicated to Hitler,... Continue Reading →
Broadsides - A collection of bits and pieces 