Broadsides – A collection of bits and pieces
"Unprovided with original learning, uninformed in the habits of thinking, unskilled in the arts of composition, I resolved to write a blog”
Every year, for the god knows how many years now, we take a house, for the whole of August, in Edinburgh, for the Festivals. In recent years it has been a gorgeous eighteenth-century property on the ancient and cobbled George Square, complete with chandeliers and a vaulted basement dining room and loads of bedrooms for... Continue Reading →
Up early from my fine apartments in the Ramsey Gardens and a brisk morning walk, passing of Boswell’s close, upon the Royal Mile and to the Presbyterian Church of St. Augustine wherein a pretty Polish wench served unto me a freshly baked bread roll of bacon and the eggs whereupon I dallied in the pleasant... 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 →
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 →
He moved amongst the Caesar’s and Napoleon’s of finance and power. He moved with diplomatic immunity, and with reputational immunity, the later conferred by a docile French press unworthy of the trade of journalism. He left a trail of sleaze. He almost became the next socialist President of France. He fell, in Manhattan, in the... Continue Reading →
Of all the books on all the shelves in all the world then surely Ulysses would be the very last you would choose to actually perform. With its often impenetrable text and its binge of words. Yet here is young Katie O’Kelly, choosing Ulysses and with an Olympic feat of memory, a crisp Dublin diction... Continue Reading →
Broadsides - A collection of bits and pieces 