Thinking about the year that is almost gone, I realise that I have changed my mind about a few things. The first - but foremost - is Christopher Hitchens. I've seen a couple of interviews he's done since having treatment for his nasty cancer, and I've read, with great pleasure, his memoir Hitch 22. I knew him very slightly in the late 60s-early 70s, and was not a great fan. I was probably … [Read more...]
Archives for 2010
Cutting Edge Reading
It's been a good while since I've posted, chiefly because limited mobility has made it difficult to get to London and take part in the capital's cultural life. It seems that I need a new knee. I wish I could say that I wore out the old one by exercising it too much, by marathon-running or even ballroom dancing. But of course, however exquisite, these would be fibs. The truth is that the … [Read more...]
Home on the Range with Hodgkin
At the redesigned Modern Art Oxford until 5th September is a large, bountiful exhibition of paintings by my friend, Howard Hodgkin, from 2001-2010, called "Time and Place" (it will be seen after that at Tilburg and San Diego; also in Oxford, at the Ashmolean until 26th Sept. is Royal Elephants from Mughal India, Paintings & drawings from the collection of Sir Howard Hodgkin, twenty … [Read more...]
Food (writing) as therapy
Writing about food, eating and drinking - as distinct from how-to cookery manuals - goes back at least to antiquity, from Juvenal's biting Satires and Petronius's detailing of the excesses of Trimalchio's feast, to the dietary prohibitions of the Old Testament. It would be both interesting and a little tedious to trace food writing through the ages; however, there has always been a … [Read more...]
Let him who is without faith cast the first stone
Religion is a difficult subject for me. I hate it - but I'm fascinated by the details of religions - liturgical, scriptural, ceremonial, even ecclesiastical - the whole lot. I feel that all religious belief is childish and weak, and I've never understood why believing you have an Imaginary Friend, and that you can pray or talk to him should make you a happier or better person. But it's the … [Read more...]
Rape as strategy
photograph: Hugo GlendinningOught we to be entertained by the truly horrible? The 2009 Pulitzer Prize-winning play, Ruined, by Lynn Nottage, is the first play I've ever seen that turns on gynecological matters, for in civil-strife-torn Congo, a woman who has been "ruined" has not just been raped, but mutilated. British reviewers have, perhaps understandably, been shy about spelling this out … [Read more...]
England’s Mozart or Liszt?
"England's Mozart" one critic dubbed the young Thomas Adès a few years ago. I very much hoped this was true, as our visitors' book has an entry for 9-10 September 1978 in firm, legible, scarily grown-up handwriting, the name and address of the six-year-old Thomas, along with those of his mother and younger brother. Now 39, Adès seems at the height of his powers as a composer, with two operas, a … [Read more...]
No spaces left on my culture dance-card this week
Report from the British culture front-line. The Renaissance Drawings exhibition at the British Museum is so cleverly installed and displayed that, though the ink has faded on many of the pieces (and you can see them more clearly in the show's great catalogue), you can learn as much about the techniques and history of drawing as from a proper lecture on these subjects. Three nights at … [Read more...]
Royal Bling
Did you know that you can go to Buckingham Palace without an invitation? Most people don't realize that The Queen's Gallery is part of Buck House: you buys your ticket and they lets you in (the price of the ticket includes the use of the excellent loos, as well). And if you're only going to the gift shop (the best in London - I'm told the dark marmalade is terrific) you don't even need … [Read more...]
Hit or Miss
Funny that the same theatre company sometimes has a hit and a flop in the same week; but that's exactly what the Royal Shakespeare Company did recently. Denis Kelly's new play, his take on King Lear, called The Gods Weep, and starring Jeremy Irons, opened at the RSC's current London base, the Hampstead Theatre. It was so very bad (and this is, I believe, the unanimous view of all us … [Read more...]