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
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Also tagged 9/11, Achilles, age, Al Pacino, Alfred Tennyson, Americans, Andy Murray, Anthony Powell, audiobooks, 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
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Review of Lev Parikian’s cheerful and entertaining Into the Tangled Bank: In which our author ventures outside to consider the British in nature. — For Geographical
Filed in Journalism, review
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Also tagged Audis, birds, cricket, Darwin, Elliot and Thompson Limited, Etta Lemon, Gilbert White, John Clare, Lev Parikian, London, music, nature, non-fiction, RSPB, sandwiches, Scotland, spiders, the Arctic, the BBC, the British, the Thames, Wales, Walter Rothschild
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Thursday, November 8, 2018
A lad named Rogers, and other true-ish stories. — For Queen Mob’s Tea House
Filed in Journalism, NEWS AT A GLANCE
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Also tagged Alcoholics Anonymous, animals, assassins, babies, books, Caractacus, China, cricket, crime, Dhingra, Epping, Evelyn Waugh, fireworks, geography, health, heroes, horses, music, Nelson Evening Mail, news, Plutarch, pumpkins, Queen Mob's Tea House, race, Rain Men, Regulus, sailors, satire, shit, Sweden, taxes, the Bible, the Congo, theatre, Tom McIlwaine, travel, TV
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Wednesday, April 18, 2018
This weekend I will be joining a local choral society for their performance of Haydn’s The Creation – and what better way to welcome Spring now that it’s finally arrived. An avowed and much-loved masterpiece from its earliest performances – Vienna, 1798 – ‘whose appeal [I read from A Peter Brown’s DECCA sleeve-notes] was irresistible […]
Filed in correspondence, Journalism
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Also tagged A Peter Brown, Aled Jones, army, bassoons, Chapel Royal, choral societies, Christianity, cosmology, cricket, DECCA, German, Germans, Hampton Court, Handel, Haydn, Italians, Kent, King James, Maidstone, Milton, music, Napoleon, oratorio, Oxford University, Poetry, religion, school, sheep, singing, Spring, the Bible, the Church of England, the French, The Oldie, the Oxford Spezzati, tigers, Vienna, war, West Kensington, whales, worms
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Tuesday, September 2, 2014
If you drive around here one more time while I am listening to Beethoven I swear I will come for you. Yours, etc.
Monday, February 24, 2014
His circus-like extravaganzas have sliced and diced The Beatles, played fast and loose with Bob Dylan, and spawned successful imitations across the theatre scene in his native Denmark. Now the gleefully wilful director-cum-ringmaster Nikolaj Cederholm brings his trademark ‘theatre concert’ to London’s Barbican, to commemorate the 250th anniversary of Mozart’s temporary residence in the British […]
Filed in feature, interview, Journalism
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Also tagged Adrian Edmondson, Betty Nansen Teatret, Blackadder, Bob Dylan, Chekhov, Darwin, Denmark, Dolly Parton, English, German, insanity, Italian, Jens Hellemann, JMW Turner, Lady Gaga, Lloyd Webber, Mandela, Mozart, Mumford & Sons, music, Neill Cardinal Furio, Nikolaj Cederholm, Old Testament, Paganini, Peter Hellemann, Red Hot Chili Peppers, rock, Shakespeare, Stanley Kubrick, The Beach Boys, The Beatles, theatre, war
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(for the British School in Colombo yearbook 2010/11) 1. So, what’s with the beard? After I graduated from the War Studies Faculty at KCL I rather fancied myself as a war correspondent, so I grew the beard. Then I just rather fancied myself. 2. We somehow get the impression that you are always very sarcastic […]
Filed in Fictions, interview
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Also tagged Alexander (‘the Great’), Amazonian tribesmen, Arthur Rimbaud, beards, books, Bruce Chatwin, Chooties, Christopher Hitchens, cynicism, Dr Gregory House, Dr Hannibal Lecter, Geoff Dyer, GF Handel, Helen DeWitt, Jacques Kallis, Jeffrey Barnard, Jim Morrison, JM Coetzee, John Nash, John Wilmot 2nd Earl of Rochester, literature, Lydia Davis, Margaret Atwood, Maurice Bowra, PE instructors, Peter O’Toole, Philip Seymour Hoffman, piano, Radiohead, Roald Dahl, Russell Crowe, school, sex, singing, Sir Ranulph Fiennes, Sri Lanka, TE Lawrence, teaching, Thom Yorke, Toby Ziegler, university, War Studies, Wendy Cope, WG Sebald, Yasmina Reza
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Eshantha Peiris, piano, Lionel Wendt Theatre A piano, a pianist, and a soft white light. Good, I think. Good. Neat. Clean. Then I see the banner projected onto the backcloth. It is 15ft by 6, at least. It says ‘EVOCATIVE’. The pianist begins to play. The banner remains. Sort of. Now it plays a slide-show […]
Filed in Journalism, review
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Also tagged Astor Piazzolla, Bach, Debussy, Dinuk Wijeratne, Eshantha Peiris, Manuel de Falla, music, Nokia, piano, Rohan de Livera, Sunday Times (SL)
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te Deum veneramur – A Celebration of Sacred Music Last Saturday’s Colombo Philharmonic Choir gig was sold to me almost solely on the strength of the acoustic in Ladies’ College chapel – being as it is not the Ladies’ College auditorium. But I confess I was also in a hurry to hear some good church music […]
Filed in Journalism, review
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Also tagged Bizet, Brahms, Byrd, Colombo Philharmonic Choir, Fauré, Mendelssohn, music, Rutter, Stainer, Sunday Times (SL)
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In the first of the Great Artist Series, presented by the Chamber Music Society of Colombo, acclaimed French pianist Jean-Bernard Pommier performed three meisterwerk sonatas to a sell-out Goethe-Institut crowd. Mozart’s Sonata in D Major is a lightish confection, perhaps slightly more icing than cake, from an era when pianos were still quite piano and […]