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News At A Glance #15

Friday, July 8, 2022

On Georgia(n)s, music, and the state of education. — For The Emigre

Filed in Journalism, NEWS AT A GLANCE | Also tagged Belarusians, books, drink, education, employment, Falklands Radio, fish, Georgia, humour, Islam, Karl Marx, marriage, Michelle Donelan, mobility, Nelson Evening Mail, Pakistan, racism, Reuben Harwood, Russians, sex, South Africans, the apocalypse, The Emigre, the UK, theremins, Turkey, Twitter, Ukrainians | Comments (0)

In-line, online, and where to draw the line?

Sunday, October 4, 2020

Notes on Colombo’s books and bookmen in the time of Covid-19. — For The Critic

Filed in correspondence, Journalism | Also tagged alcohol, Aleksandar Hemon, Amazon, Ashok Ferrey, B&Q, Bandaranaike Memorial International Conference Hall, books, 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, 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 | Comments (0)

The One That Got Away – David Blacker

Sunday, July 5, 2020

The Sri Lankan writer and photographer talks about the greatest photo he never got… and one he did. — For the Sri Lankan Sunday Times

Filed in column, interview, Journalism | Also tagged Buddhism, China, clothing, David Blacker, demons, Interview, Kandy, light, monks, New York Times, photography, Ritigala, Sinhala, Sri Lanka, Sunday Times (SL), Sweden, terrorism, travel, veddahs, war | Comments (0)

My first Carr

Wednesday, May 20, 2020

On my personal discovery of eccentric English novelist (and teacher, and artist, and airman, and footballer) JL Carr, the night before what would have been his 108th birthday. — For The Critic

Filed in feature, Journalism | Also tagged Andy Miller, architecture, Backlisted, Booker Prize, books, Byron Rogers, clergymen, Colin Firth, coronavirus, education, Englishmen, football, Frank Muir, Gambia, Goldsmiths College, Guardian Fiction Prize, JL Carr, John Clare, John Mitchinson, Joseph Conrad, Kenneth Branagh, Kettering, Laurence Sterne, maps, Marcus Aurelius, Marcus Berkmann, Methodism, Nicholas Lezard, painting, Penguin, publishing, Pushkin, Quince Tree Press, RAF, religion, Richard Coles, South Dakota, The Critic, Thomas Hardy, Vogue, writing, WW1, WW2, Yorkshire | Comments (0)

‘It is the living we should fear’

Sunday, March 29, 2020

DISCLAIMER: Ten years ago, I reviewed Shehan Karunatilaka’s debut novel, Chinaman, for this newspaper. It was brilliant, I said, and everyone should buy it. I noted, though, for form’s sake, that I’d done some light proofreading of the manuscript, and hoped that this would not be taken either as cause or symptom of inoperable bias. […]

Filed in Journalism, review | Also tagged BBC, children, Colombo, Commonwealth Book Prize, cousins, cricket, death, DSC Prize for South Asian Literature, Elvis Presley, Gratiaen Award, Herodotus, independence, Marlon James, Marxism, Michael Ondaatje, Nietzsche, Oscar Wilde, pangolins, Penguin India, photography, Richard de Zoysa, Shehan Karunatilaka, Singlish, Sinhala, Sri Lanka, Sunday Times (SL), The Mahavamsa, The Matrix, war, Wisden | Comments (0)

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, music, quizzes, the internet, the Messiah | 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, Americans, 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, 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)

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, music, New Directions, New York, 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)

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, music, 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, December 18, 2017

. Band instruments in use by the Salvation Army are worth £86,000. — The Nelson Evening Mail, July 17 1908 . A transgender man has had a baby five years after having one as a woman. Sheikh Hamdan bin Mohammed bin Rashid Al Maktoum, the Crown Prince of Dubai, is known as ‘Fazza’. ‘Ein Volk, ein […]

Filed in Journalism, NEWS AT A GLANCE | Also tagged Adolf Hitler, advertising, Alastair Cook, Aristotle, babies, Boris Starling, cricket, crime, death, domestic affairs, Dubai, food, German, health, Hergé, homeopathy, magic, marriage, men, money, music, Nelson Evening Mail, philosophy, religion, royalty, Salvation Army, science, Sheikh Hamdan bin Mohammed bin Rashid Al Maktoum, shopping, spies, The Waltons, Tintin, United Arab Emirates, walking, West Malling, Western Australian Cricket Association, women, writers, writing | Comments (0)