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difficult second from bottom

Tuesday, March 10, 2020

difficult second album difficult second child difficult second trimester difficult second album syndrome difficult second pregnancy Only Connect: The Difficult Second Quiz Book, by Jack Waley-Cohen difficult second interview questions difficult second baby difficult second coming difficult second novel .

Filed in Poetry | Also tagged babies, difficult second album, Found poetry, Google search results, Jack Waley-Cohen, novels, quizzes, the internet, the Messiah | Comments (0)

Applause for thought?

Sunday, October 6, 2019

Midori Goto’s violin recital in Colombo, reviewed. (Along with half the audience.) — For the Sunday Times (SL)

Filed in Journalism, review | Also tagged audiences, Brahms, cell-phones, Chamber Music Society of Colombo, children, Colombo, Debussy, education, etiquette, Fauré, Ieva Jokubaviciute, Lakshman Joseph de Saram, Lionel Wendt, Midori Goto, piano, Sri Lanka, Sunday Times (SL), violin | Comments (0)

NEWS AT A GLANCE

Monday, May 27, 2019

. The maximum suicide age is between 65 and 75. — The Nelson Evening Mail, Thursday, August 9 1906 . Forest Green Cricket Club accepts no liability for damage to vehicles parked on the green whilst a game is in progress. There are pros and cons to time-travelling while black. Pope Gregory declared the rooster the most suitable […]

Filed in Journalism, NEWS AT A GLANCE | Also tagged anatomy, aristocracy, art, Ashmolean Museum, baking, Christianity, cocks, cricket, crime, education, employment, farming, Forest Green, Fox News, frogs, Fukushima, Latin, Nelson Evening Mail, news, North Korea, nuclear power, Partick, race, Raymond Joseph Teller, time-travel, toilets | 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, Americans, 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, 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)

NEWS AT A GLANCE #4

Thursday, November 29, 2018

No alternative facts to see here, people! — For Queen Mob’s Tea House

Filed in Journalism, NEWS AT A GLANCE | Also tagged anatomy, army, asbestos, Barbara Cartland, bathrooms, books, children, dairy, dancing, death, dreams, England, French, George VI, incarceration, insanity, Kaiser Wilhelm, lions, meteorology, Nelson Evening Mail, Norfolk Showground, Queen Mob's Tea House, Royal Norfolk Show, rugby, Russians, Saigon, satire, Spinoza, St Leonard, Tacques Tati, the Blitz, the internet, trombone, Tula Province, vodka | Comments (0)

Subterranean Homesick Baroque – after Dylan

Tuesday, November 20, 2018

Johnny’s in the basement, mixing up the medicine. I’m on the toilet, downloading Handel operas.

Filed in Non-fictions | Also tagged (after), Bob Dylan, GF Handel, micro-non-fiction, opera, pharmacy, Pikey Laureate, the internet | Comments (0)

NEWS AT A GLANCE #1

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 | Also tagged Alcoholics Anonymous, animals, assassins, babies, Beethoven, books, Caractacus, China, cricket, crime, Dhingra, Epping, Evelyn Waugh, fireworks, geography, health, heroes, horses, 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 | 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, love, Michael Ondaatje, mountains, 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, April 23, 2018

. We call our day 24 hours, but it is really 23 hours 56 minutes 5 seconds. — The Nelson Evening Mail, September 28 1906 . ‘Facetious’ is the shortest word in the English language including all the vowels in alphabetical order. The English theatre loves the joker. Samuel Beckett notched up 35 runs in first-class cricket. UK funeral directors are […]

Filed in Journalism, NEWS AT A GLANCE | Also tagged America, anatomy, baking, californium, comedy, cricket, death, education, English, fishing, funeral directors, gun violence, JR Ewing, mackerel, men, money, murder, Nelson Evening Mail, republicanism, Ross Brown, Samuel Beckett, singing, the pentatonic scale, the UK, theatre, time, torture, Uzbekistan, vowels, weather, work | Comments (0)

Creation-ism

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 | Also tagged A Peter Brown, Aled Jones, army, bassoons, Beethoven, Chapel Royal, choral societies, Christianity, cosmology, cricket, DECCA, German, Germans, Hampton Court, Handel, Haydn, Italians, Kent, King James, Maidstone, Milton, 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 | Comments (0)