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Tag Archives: love

Strength and honour

Tuesday, May 12, 2020

A love letter to 20 years of watching Gladiator. — For The Critic

Filed in column, Journalism | Also tagged Academy Awards, Alain de Botton, army, Classics, Cleopatra, Commodus, Derek Jacobi, Djimon Hounsou, drink, Edward Gibbon, Facebook, film, Germans, Hans Zimmer, Harry Sidebottom, history, Holst, Jesus, Julius Caesar, Kent, Loeb Classical Library, Marcus Aurelius, Moravia, Morocco, music, Nick Cave, Odeon, Oxford, painting, religion, Rich Hardcastle, Ridley Scott, Rome, Royal Albert Hall, Russell Crowe, Slovakia, South Africa, Spain, Suffolk, Surrey, tattoos, The Critic, Thirty Odd Foot of Grunts, war, YouTube | Comments (0)

Boursin – the lost advertisement

Friday, February 14, 2020

I love you. Really. Truly: je t’adore. But when I make our lunch, I still put more cheese in my sandwich than in yours. — For Roar Media

Filed in Poetry | Also tagged Boursin, cheese, men, Roar Media, Valentine's Day, women | Comments (0)

Trouble at t’Mill

Wednesday, January 8, 2020

The curious life of John Stuart Mill, philosopher . When JS Mill was born, his father, James, challenged a friend to ‘race with you in the education of… the most accomplished and virtuous young man.’ That other child has not gone down in history – but he may well have dodged a serious bullet. Learning […]

Filed in feature, Journalism | Also tagged Avignon, Bertrand Russell, Blackadder, crime, education, Edward 'Clerihew' Bentley, England, fathers, Florence Nightingale, France, Greek, India, James Mill, Jeremy Bentham, John Milton, Journalism, JS Mill, Milicent Fawcett, Monty Python, philosophy, Poetry, politics, Reading, Samuel Taylor Coleridge, Smith, sons, the East India Company, the Liberal Party, The Spectator, Thomas Babington Macaulay, Thomas Carlyle, UCL, Utilitarianism, women's suffrage, Wordsworth | Comments (0)

Did The English Patient send me to Afghanistan?

Tuesday, October 16, 2018

Two nights from now, by way of (ahem) a birthday present, I will be attending a live-orchestra screening of The English Patient at the Albert Hall. I had invited an old friend, a raven-haired young lady (named in Debrett’s) of impossibly romantic tendency, who first exposed me to the film in, I’d say, about 1998 […]

Filed in correspondence, Journalism | Also tagged Academy Awards, Afghanistan, Ahmed Hassanein, air travel, American University in Cairo, anatomy, Anthony Minghella, Arabic, army, Banana Republic, bedouin, Benny Goodman, Booker Prize, books, bookshops, Brighton, Bruce Chatwin, Byron, Canada, Charing Cross Road, Christopher Hitchens, clothing, Debrett's, deserts, Dorset, Egypt, Egyptology, exploration, film, French Foreign Legion, Gabriel Yared, Geoff Dyer, Geographical, Geographical Journal, Herodotus, Hungarian, Hungary, JM Coetzee, John Ball, John Hare, Joseph Conrad, Justin Marozzi, Kensington Gore, Kristen Scott Thomas, László Almásy, London, Long Range Desert Group, Lorenz Hart, Michael Ondaatje, mountains, music, novels, Orientalism, Oscar Wilde, Oxford, Picador, plums, Ralph Bagnold, Ralph Fiennes, Ranulph Fiennes, Richard Bermann, Robert Twigger, Royal Albert Hall, Royal Geographical Society, Saul Kelly, Sinai, SOE, song, South Africa, the Himalayas, the Nile, The Oldie, the Sahara, the Western Desert, war, WG Sebald, William Golding, wind, women, WW2, YouTube, Zerzura | Comments (0)

NEWS AT A GLANCE

Monday, February 19, 2018

. In China the dials of a clock turn round instead of the hands. — The Nelson Evening Mail, September 8 1908 . Benedict Cumberbatch reads Oryx magazine. A piece of pasta (dry) weighs essentially one gram. A man can only care about so many things. Labels are for clothes. In Bosnian there are no words for […]

Filed in Journalism, NEWS AT A GLANCE | Also tagged Benedict Cumberbatch, Bosnian, brothers, China, clothing, cows, Darryl Gerrity, death, Dmitri Kabalevsky, Englishmen, fiction, film, friends, grapes, Hawaii, health, horology, Islam, magazines, measurements, men, music, Nelson Evening Mail, non-fiction, pasta, pornography, Qatar Airways, Reading, religion, Russians, Virginia, white goods | Comments (2)

A hero’s welcome

Tuesday, December 19, 2017

Dunkirk – THE UNTOLD STORY!! — For The Oldie

Filed in correspondence, Journalism | Also tagged 11th Armoured Division, 51st Highland Division, 97th (Kent Yeomanry) Field Regiment, army, British Expeditionary Force, Canterbury, champagne, Channel Islands, cricket, Croix de Guerre, D-Day, Dunkirk, Elsie Adeline Cockersell, film, France, Germans, incarceration, James Kingford Carson, Kent, livery companies, moustaches, Nazis, Normandy, Royal Artillery, Royal Electrical and Mechanical Engineers, sea-faring, St Valery-en-Caux, The Oldie, war, women, Yorkshire | Comments (0)

Failure to launch?

Thursday, September 14, 2017

To Daunt’s in Marylebone, last night, where former pretty-boy and nightclub bouncer (and Amorist ‘Fiascos’ columnist) Anthony McGowan launched his latest literary venture, The Art of Failing. Subtitled Notes from the Underdog, the book chronicles a year in the life of West Hampstead’s shambolic would-be flâneur, by way of library mishaps, bad packed lunches, and […]

Filed in correspondence, Journalism | Also tagged Anthony McGowan, bookshops, Charlie Campbell, cricket, Daunt, drink, Facebook, health, London, Oneworld Publications, parties, publishing, Sebastian Faulks, sex, Stewart Lee, The Amorist, Tom Holland, West Hampstead, wives | Comments (0)

Bertrand Russell wishes you a happy marriage

Sunday, August 28, 2016

for Paul and Beth (from volumes found at their engagement party) . ‘Whitehead and Russell’s Principia Mathematica is famous for taking a thousand pages to prove that 1+1=2.’ — Mark Dominus ‘To say shortly why one values love is not easy.’ — Bertrand Russell . I know what life and love may be. . . […]

Filed in Poetry | Also tagged Bertrand Russell, Beth Angharad James, Found poetry, marriage, maths, Paul Richards, philosophy, translation | Comments (0)

Takes two

Monday, December 5, 2011

When my girlfriend told me she’d cheated, I said that I had too. It seemed the quickest way to hurt her. And to spare her sorrow.

Filed in Fictions | Also tagged micro-fiction, sex | Comments (0)

Answerphone

Friday, September 23, 2011

That message that you never left… I just got it.

Filed in Fictions | Also tagged micro-fiction | Comments (0)