Plain English

 The exhibition called "Modern British Sculpture" that opened at the Royal Academy today (until 7 April) is a fraud.         It's one of those shows intended to illustrate a theory or make an argument. Its publicity claims: "the exhibition takes a fresh approach, replacing the traditional survey with a provocative set of juxtapositions that … [Read more...]

There have been many obituaries of John Gross, who died on 10 January. He was the critics' critic, witty, erudite, and polymathic, a graceful writer and a lightning-quick thinker. His series of Oxford anthologies, his books on Shylock, Joyce and Kipling and his 2001 memoir about growing up in the Jewish East End of London, A Double Thread, will all last; and one of his … [Read more...]

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...]

  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...]

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...]

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...]

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...]

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" 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...]

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...]