Much as I deplore religion and all who sail in her creaking ghostship of war, I venerate churches themselves. There is a wonderful passage in Alain de Botton’s Status Anxiety about their architectural importance in the English countryside. For a country farmer centuries ago, they could be a beacon of democracy and humanism - the [...]
Archive for July, 2007
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Posted in Architecture, Film, Literature, tagged alain de botton, parish churches, status anxiety, the catherdral, tomek baginski on July 31, 2007 | No Comments »
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Posted in Literature, tagged anna karenina, books about trains, housekeeping, martin jarvis, murder on orient express on July 30, 2007 | 1 Comment »
Books and trains go together like Anna Karenina and, well, trains.
As a highwaywoman of hep, scouring the kingdom for cutting-edge cultural coffers from which to raid artistic pearls of wisdom, legion are the air-conditioned hours I spend nestled upon violent Virgin upholstery with a Ginsters beef bap in one hand and a weighty tome in [...]
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Posted in Literature, Music, TV, tagged andreas scholl, harry potter, horlicks, lute songs, sharpe on July 28, 2007 | No Comments »
The conversation with myself goes like this.
Harry Potter, again, from the top? GET A LIFE, BLONDE!
OK, OK. Tomorrow. Today, I’ll round things off with a few seventeenth centruy English lute songs from Andreas Scholl, an episode of Sharpe in which he gets particularly dirty, and a Horlicks.
Tomorrow can be all about the hot young mayhem.
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Posted in Film, Music, tagged London, Saint-Georges, watership down, country childhood on July 27, 2007 | No Comments »
A murky, lurksome London day tasting of stale station cappuccino. Exmouth market glittering with dust and tiny diamonds. Chicken and rice, and the smell of old Stella, and the quicksilver strains of Saint-Georges matching a pallid, underlit sky.
Shuddering home, the rabbit-filled fields always remind me of Watership Down. To a child of dens and ditches, [...]
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Posted in Film, Literature, tagged colm toibin, gary oldman, harry potter on July 26, 2007 | 1 Comment »
vs.
The conversation with myself goes like this.
Harry Potter? Oh, shush. Harry Potter? Oh, shush. Harry Potter? Look. You are midway through The Master by Colm Toibin. This is a proper book. Despite being unable to read one page of bloody Henry James without wanting to run away to a biker bar and do [...]
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Posted in Art, Film, tagged hitchcock, man ray, rene clair, spellbound, surrealism, tate modern on July 25, 2007 | No Comments »
Oh quick now, come in, sir, come in! Raindrops on your lashes - and your top hat splashing from the brim! You’ve come to the right place, sir, a day like this. The auditorium is warm, dark, and dry. Let me rub you down. A glass of champagne? A cigar?
It does seem an apt [...]
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Posted in Fashion, tagged high waisted jeans, pre collections on July 24, 2007 | 1 Comment »
Poor consumptive bohemian that I am, I eke out The Sunday Times through the week, allowing myself one supplement a day with my eggy bread and absinthe. Thus it was only last night that I flew, amongst a clatter of falling books, faded roses and epistles bathed in tears, to gaze from my oriel window [...]
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Posted in Music, Theatre, tagged just a minute, alan ayckbourn, marmite crumpet, kanye west on July 23, 2007 | No Comments »
Incidentally, I have a bit of a thing about Alan Ayckbourn. I know he is a rare and dedicated patron of regional theatre, a brilliant technician and plotter; interviews point to him being an erudite, sensitive, insightful man; I feel that anyone who gets as excited as I do about a new series of [...]
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Posted in TV, Theatre, tagged decor without production, Guy Henry, HBO Rome, king john, mary stuart, RSC on July 22, 2007 | 2 Comments »
Guy Henry is my kind of actor. Wiry and haunted, he stalks a stage like an unobtrusive cat, quietly nurturing the acid knowledge of everyone else’s misdemeanours and biding his time ’til the elegant pounce. He plays the kind of politicians we wish we had, because then we could blame them.
I first fell for him [...]
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Posted in Music, tagged englishman, muse, rain on July 20, 2007 | No Comments »
Quiet, now.
A day not for words but for listening. Go out there and dare yourself to stand still in the rain. Don’t hold your breath, don’t brace yourself. Let everything melt, slide and dissolve. Let the world have an effect on you, batter you down, knock on your face. Be reminded that you are a [...]
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