On Georgia(n)s, music, and the state of education. — For The Emigre
Filed in Journalism, NEWS AT A GLANCE
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Also tagged Belarusians, drink, education, employment, Falklands Radio, fish, Georgia, humour, Islam, Karl Marx, marriage, Michelle Donelan, mobility, Nelson Evening Mail, novels, Pakistan, racism, Reuben Harwood, Russians, sex, South Africans, the apocalypse, The Emigre, the UK, theremins, Turkey, Twitter, Ukrainians
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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
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Also tagged Afghanistan, America, Americans, Barack Obama, 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
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The Red Sea Scrolls: How Ancient Papyri Reveal the Secrets of the Pyramids Pierre Tallet and Mark Lehner Thames & Hudson £30 319pp (1.216kg) . Because I once made the mistake of dabbling a bit in Egyptology, no less than every other week – in the year 2022 – some friend (‘…’) will schwack me […]
Get Rich or Lie Trying: Ambition and Deceit in the New Influencer Economy by Symeon Brown, Atlantic Books, £16.99 . Born when we were born, and embarking on writing ‘careers’ (LOL) just as the web ripped the financial guts out of the paper industry, my idea of a good time is to phone my best […]
Filed in Journalism, review
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Also tagged 50 Cent, Atlantic Books, Black Lives Matter, Cardi B, Channel 4, China, Clubhouse, Covid, crime, cryptocurrency, dropshipping, Facebook, fashion, Fashion Nova, finance, influencing, Instagram, Jordan Belfort, Journalism, Kylie Jenner, LimeWire, LinkedIn, livestreaming, music, non-fiction, plastic surgery, pyramid schemes, rap, religion, social media, Soulja Boy, Symeon Brown, Texas, The Critic, The Wall Street Journal, TikTok, Tottenham, Turkey, Twitter, YouTube
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Thursday, September 30, 2021
war/conflict/Troubles land modern history of Ireland personal identity religion rural landscape vs industrialisation loyalty to roots vs leaving silence vs talking place language: Gaelic, Anglo-Saxon, Latin, English farming vs academia invasion (poignant) .
Thursday, September 2, 2021
Wild Souls: Freedom and Flourishing in the Non-Human World by Emma Marris Bloomsbury £20 (hardback) . Stepping slightly sideways from where she left off in Rambunctious Garden: Saving Nature in a Post-Wild World, Emma Marris now turns her attention to a series of ‘exercises in practical philosophy’ on the ethics of humans versus(?) wild animals. From […]
Filed in Journalism, review
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Also tagged biodiversity, birds, chimpanzees, death, ecology, Emma Marris, ethics, evolution, food, Geographical, Hawaii, nature, New Zealand, non-fiction, philosophy, polar bears, rats, the Arctic, the Royal Geographical Society, veganism, Yellowstone National Park
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Or; in the kitchen with my best mate’s mum . About mid-February last year, we were sitting around one afternoon, exchanging the usual disenchantments on the subject of St Valentine’s Day, when my best mate’s mum casually dropped into conversation the fact that in her younger days she once co-wrote a book for Mills & […]
Filed in Non-fictions
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Also tagged American, Bernado Bertolucci, Charlotte Rampling, Chelsea, diagrams, Dominic Hilton, education, Falkland Islands Museum and National Trust, food, girls, jizz, John Bunyan, kebabs, Manchester, Mandarin, Maryland, MILFs, Mills & Boon, mothers, North Derbyshire, nuts, Portugal, Russians, servants, sex, stuffing, Swedes, the French, the Seventies, the UN, Valentine's Day, Vienna, Wales, Working Party of the UK Federation for Education in Home Economics, Yule log
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Review of Alexandria: the Quest for the Lost City, by Edmund Richardson. — For The Spectator
Filed in Journalism, review
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Also tagged Afghanistan, Alexander (‘the Great’), Alexander Burnes, army, Bagram, Bamiyan, Bengal, Bombay, Buddhism, Charles Masson, China, Edmund Richardson, Harappa, India, Josiah Harlan, Kabul, Kharosthi, London, Macedonia, non-fiction, Pakistan, spies, the British Museum, the East India Company, the Great Game, the Hindu Kush, The Spectator, tigers, war, William Loveday
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Confessions of a bibliomaniac in the South Atlantic. — For The Critic
Filed in correspondence, Journalism
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Also tagged Alan Hollinghurst, Amazon, Angela Carter, Antarctica, Anthony Burgess, Anthony Farrar-Hockley, Antoine de St Exupéry, Bernard MacLaverty, Bernard Malamud, bookshopping, Brendan Whittington-Jones, Charing Cross Rd, charity shops, Charlotte McConaghy, Christopher Hitchens, Covid-19, Damon Runyan, Daniel Defoe, Dave Bentley, Don DeLillo, Flann O'Brien, FOPP, Freya Stark, Gehan de Silva Wijeyeratne, Geoff Dyer, George Melly, Goethe, Google Maps, Gore Vidal, Graham Greene, Graham Swift, Harold Nicolson, Henry Kissinger, Ian Fleming, Jack Grimwood, James Clammer, James Hilton, James Joyce, James Kelman, James Meek, Jared Diamond, Jerome K Jerome, JG Ballard, JG Farrell, Jim Crace, John Julius Norwich, John le Carré, John Steinbeck, Joseph O'Connor, Jules Verne, Kurt Vonnegut, Laurence Sterne, libraries, Maria Stepanova, Michael Blencowe, Milan Kundera, Mordecai Richler, museums, Oxfam, Patricia Highsmith, Penelope Lively, Peter Høeg, Philip Roth, Rabelais, Richard Flanagan, Rupert Everett, Salman Rushdie, Schopenhauer, Seth Burkett, Shalom Auslander, Sri Lanka, The Critic, the Falklands, the Lonely Planet, Thomas Hardy, Thomas Keneally, Thomas Mann, TS Eliot, Umberto Eco, Uruguay, William Faulkner, William Golding, William Thackeray
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Notes on Colombo’s books and bookmen in the time of Covid-19. — For The Critic
Filed in correspondence, Journalism
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Also tagged alcohol, Aleksandar Hemon, Amazon, Ashok Ferrey, B&Q, Bandaranaike Memorial International Conference Hall, bookshops, Buddhism, Ceylon, Ceylon Bible Society, charity, China, Chuck Palahniuk, clothing, Colombo, Colombo Fashion Week, Colombo International Book Fair, construction, Covid-19, Dan Brown, David Duchovny, democracy, Denis Johnson, Donald Trump, Dr Sudath Samaraweera, Dutch Burgher Union, education, Emma Donoghue, Emmanuel Carrere, England, Eventbrite, Facebook, Galle Literary Festival, Harrods, health, hygiene, Iran, James Hadley Chase, Jilly Cooper, Kumar Sangakkara, letters, LIDL, Lt General Shavendra Silva, Malaysia, Michael Chabon, Milo, money, music, Nicholas Mosley, Nixon, Northern Ireland, novels, One Galle Face, Ottawan, Panos Karnezis, rain, religion, Robert Knox, satire, schools, Shangri-La, Shehan Karunatilaka, shopping, Sinhala, snacks, South Africa, Sri Lanka, Sri Lankan Exhibition & Conference Centre, Tamil, TASCHEN, taxes, TGI Fridays, The Big Bad Wolf, The Critic, the internet, the Sistine Chapel, Tisara Prakasakayo, TS Eliot, tsunami, VIPs, Waterstone's, weddings, Yudhanjaya Wijeratne
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