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...]
Archives for May 2010
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...]