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Late stylishness

Thursday, July 7, 2022

The Last Days of Roger Federer: And Other Endings By Geoff Dyer (Audiobook read by Richard Burnip, 11h 29m, Canongate Books, £21.87) . It’s late June, Wimbledon’s upon us, and Geoff Dyer is talking about his tennis injuries. Geoff Dyer is always talking about his tennis injuries. It’s one of his endearing features. But when […]

Filed in Journalism, review | Also tagged 9/11, Achilles, age, Al Pacino, Alfred Tennyson, Andy Murray, Anthony Powell, audiobooks, Beethoven, Bjorn Borg, Bob Dylan, Burning Man, Canongate, Chuck Yeager, Coetzee, Custer, David Cameron, David Thomson, De Chirico, death, DH Lawrence, drugs, epigraphs, football, footnotes, Geoff Dyer, George Best, George Saunders, Gerard Manley Hopkins, Gillian Slovo, Gillian Welch, health and safety, Henry James, humour, James Last, jazz, Jean Rhys, JMW Turner, John Berger, John Coltrane, Jorah Mormont, London, loo roll, Martin Scorsese, Mike Tyson, Mohicans, Nietzsche, non-fiction, Paris, Pete Sampras, Peter Ackroyd, Philip Larkin, Raymond Williams, Rebecca West, references, Richard Burnip, Roger Federer, shampoo, Tarkovsky, TC Boyle, tennis, The Doors, the Duke of Edinburgh's Award, the Olympics, trains, William Basinski, Wimbledon, work, WWII, YouTube | Comments (0)

On Uncertain Ground

Tuesday, June 28, 2022

In which I, ASH Smyth, High Anglican atheist, descendant of Huguenots, dissenters, Presbyterians, Church of Ireland types, and maybe even Quakers, make my Catholic press debut, on Phil Klay’s Uncertain Ground: Citizenship in an Age of Endless, Invisible War. — For The Catholic Herald

Filed in Journalism, review | Also tagged Afghanistan, America, Barack Obama, books, Catholicism, citizenship, Iraq, Jesuits, John McCain, Journalism, Libya, movies, Navy Seals, Niger, non-fiction, Pakistan, Penguin, Phil Klay, politics, Somalia, St Ignatius, Syria, The Catholic Herald, Ukraine, USMC, veterans, war, writers, Yemen | Comments (0)

News At A Glance #3

Friday, April 15, 2022

More or less news more-or-less concerning Lord Salisbury, Quakers, and Chaldaean numerology. — For The Emigre

Filed in Journalism, NEWS AT A GLANCE | Also tagged Africa, Australia, big mamas, cars, Chaldaea, China, death, gold, Guildenstern, lighthouses, Lord Salisbury, maps, March, mental health, natural resources, Nelson Evening Mail, news, numerology, Old Norse, Patrick Watts, Princeton, Quakers, Rosencrantz, satire, Siberia, soup, swearing, The Emigre, the Supreme Court, vitals | Comments (0)

A season in ‘Hell’

Wednesday, August 26, 2020

Review of Jonathan C Slaght’s compelling Owls of the Eastern Ice: The Quest to Find and Save the World’s Largest Owl. — For Geographical

Filed in Journalism, review | Also tagged Allen Lane, bears, China, conservation, fieldwork, forests, Geographical, Japan, Jonathan C Slaght, memoir, non-fiction, North Korea, owls, Russia, the Soviet Union, tigers, urine, winter | Comments (0)

The One That Got Away – Deshan Tennekoon

Sunday, July 19, 2020

The Sri Lankan author, Fulbright scholar and photographer talks about the greatest shot he never got… and one he did. TRIGGER WARNING: includes bird-poo references. — For the Sri Lankan Sunday Times

Filed in column, interview, Journalism | Also tagged architecture, birds, cadjan, Dambulla, Deshan Tennekoon, editors, Everest, Fulbright Program, Galle Literary Festival, in-laws, mountaineering, photography, portraits, publishing, Red Cross, shit, Sri Lanka, Sunday Times (SL), swimming, Time Out, Trincomalee, UNICEF, Xbox | Comments (0)

NEWS AT A GLANCE

Monday, October 28, 2019

. During one year a high police official in New York was offered £120,000 in bribes to “look the other way.” — The Nelson Evening Mail, Tuesday, June 22 1909 . The night is chilly to a man without clothes. You get a free tote bag if you subscribe to almost anything. Sussex folk have few superstitions. There […]

Filed in Journalism, NEWS AT A GLANCE | Also tagged bags, books, clothing, cricket, crime, death, elephants, garlic, Glasgow University, international affairs, mental health, monarchy, money, Nelson Evening Mail, news, Pocahontas, rabies, religion, satire, sex, sleep, Sussex, the English, the Irish, the Lonely Planet, Thomas Mann, towns, travel, trees, weather | Comments (0)

Ducks and cover

Saturday, September 21, 2019

Ducks, Newburyport by Lucy Ellmann Galley Beggar Press, £14.99, pp1020 . Why, I asked some months back, in these pages, do the protagonists in American fiction these days seem so lost? What is it they’re all so het up about? Well… everything. At least according to the narrator of Ducks, Newburyport. Lucy Ellmann’s monster novel […]

Filed in Journalism, review | Also tagged 4th of July, actors, boarlets, Booker Prize, brandnames, burial mounds, clickbait, death, ducks, engineering, facts, first world problems, FOOSH injuries, Galley Beggar Press, geography, Gilbert & Sullivan, guns, health, homework, James Joyce, Laura Ingalls Wilder, lists, Lucy Ellmann, lyrics, memory, mothers, movies, names, Newburyport, novels, Ohio, Philip Glass, pies, presidents, Revere Ware, Schubert, Shakespeare, shopping, Spectator, styptic sticks, the Amish, the Midwest, trauma, Umberto Eco, wallpaper, women, wordplays, YouTube | Comments (0)

NEWS AT A GLANCE

Monday, August 5, 2019

. Though fair-haired people are not so strong as those with dark hair, they usually live longer. — The Nelson Evening Mail, Wednesday, July 15 1908 . The comedian Joe Pasquale (born Joseph Ellis Pasquale) has not died. The US government spends more per head on their dysfunctional healthcare system than the UK spends per person on […]

Filed in Journalism, NEWS AT A GLANCE | Also tagged Adidas, Anthony McGowan, Arabic, Batman, Bobby Shafto, Boston MA, British Guiana Boers, chocolate, cricket, gifs, hair, health, intelligence, Joe Pasquale, Leeds Castle, Lincolnshire, Mandarin, marriage, mental health, money, MPs, Nelson Evening Mail, Orientalism, owls, Roud Folks Song Index, satire, sea-faring, Sri Lankans, the NHS, wresteling | Comments (0)

All good things must come to an end

Saturday, February 2, 2019

Some Trick: thirteen stories by Helen DeWitt New Directions, £22.95, pp.197 Certain American States by Catherine Lacey Granta, £12.99, pp.190 Hostages by Oisín Fagan Head of Zeus, £8.99, pp.269 Notes from the Fog by Ben Marcus Granta, £12.99, pp.266 The Abyss and Other Stories by Leonid Andreyev Alma Books, £8.99, pp.315 . Only Helen DeWitt […]

Filed in Journalism, review | Also tagged Alien, Alma Books, Anglo-Irish, art, Ben Marcus, Berlin, Bertrand Russell, bombs, books, Britishness, Catherine Lacey, children, coffee, computers, Cotton Eye Joe, crucifixion, death, domestic affairs, footnotes, genius, Granta, handjobs, Head of Zeus, Helen DeWitt, humour, Ireland, Islam, Leon Wieseltier, Leonid Andreyev, linguistics, madness, maths, mental health, music, New Directions, New York, novels, Oisín Fagan, Oxford, painting, parents, plays, Poetry, publishing, revolution, Roy Keane, Russians, short stories, South Park, Spectator, terrorism, the Kaddish, Tolstoy, torture, WWI, xkcd | Comments (0)

‘5 Living Presidents’? ASH Smyth demands a recount

Saturday, December 1, 2018

A list of all the living presidents, as at 5:57pm, December 1st, 2018 – for reasons that, I think, should be self-evident. — For Queen Mob’s Tea House

Filed in correspondence, Journalism | Also tagged politics, presidents, Queen Mob's Tea House | Comments (0)