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The One That Got Away – Abdul Halik Azeez

Sunday, September 27, 2020

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

Filed in column, interview, Journalism | Also tagged Abdul Halik Azeez, age, architecture, art, blogging, Buddhism, cameras, citizenship, Colombo, Dambulla, documentary, economics, Facebook, health, Instagram, Panadura, photography, poverty, Saskia Fernando Gallery, semiotics, spirituality, Sri Lanka, Sunday Times (SL), Tamils, travel, video, war | Comments (0)

The One That Got Away – Shehan Obeysekara

Sunday, September 13, 2020

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

Filed in column, interview, Journalism | Also tagged advertising, art, Caravaggio, demons, fire, ghosts, Goethe-Institut, Harold Peiris Gallery, Instagram, Malaysia, myths, nature, parents, photography, Shehan Obeysekara, Sinharaja, snakes, Sri Lanka, Sunday Times (SL), trees, waterfalls, Zdzislaw Beksinski | 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, novels, Penguin, publishing, Pushkin, Quince Tree Press, RAF, religion, Richard Coles, South Dakota, The Critic, Thomas Hardy, Vogue, writing, WW1, WW2, Yorkshire | Comments (0)

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, love, Marcus Aurelius, Moravia, Morocco, music, Nick Cave, Odeon, Oxford, 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)

May Day, May Day…

Monday, May 4, 2020

A lockdown letter from Colombo. — For The Critic

Filed in correspondence, Journalism | Also tagged Amazon, Argentina, army, beer, children, China, Colombo, coronavirus, cricket, Dominic Hilton, drink, Facebook, food, Gotabaya Rajapaksa, health, letters, lockdown, May Day, Mel Gibson, money, Osama bin Laden, peacocks, quizzes, Sanskrit, shopping, Singapore, Sinhala, socialism, Sri Lanka, swimming, the British, The Critic, UberEats, work | Comments (0)

NEWS AT A GLANCE

Monday, October 14, 2019

. The King has a collection of 170 curious walking sticks. One is made from one of the piles of old London Bridge. — The Nelson Evening Mail, Wednesday, April 10 1907 . All the best people are born in October. In Moldova (and Czechoslovakia), ‘carp’ is spelled ‘crap’. In 1492 Native Americans discovered Columbus lost […]

Filed in Journalism, NEWS AT A GLANCE | Also tagged books, buses, Christopher Columbus, clothing, cutlery, Czechoslovakia, democracy, engineering, fish, grandmothers, health, honey, London, Max Hastings, Moldova, monarchy, mountains, Mozart, Native Americans, Nelson Evening Mail, news, October, piles, rugby, Rugby World Cup 2019, Russia, satire, Scotland, sex, stupidity, termites, walking sticks, war | Comments (0)

A biographical note on Duncan Grant (apropos one of those Facebook challenges that do the rounds occasionally)

Monday, March 4, 2019

A weapons-grade Bloomsburyist, Duncan Grant (1885-1978) spent much of his early childhood in India (natch), where his grandfather had been Lieutenant-Governor of Bengal. He ‘became interested in Japanese prints’ while still at prep school. After attending St Paul’s, Westminster School of Art and the Slade School – interspersed with stints in Italy and France, of […]

Filed in Non-fictions | Also tagged Abyssinia, art, Bengal, Bloomsbury, Clive Bell, David Garnett, Duncan Grant, fancy dress, France, Horace de Vere Cole, India, Italy, Leonard Woolf, portraits, Royal Navy, St Paul's Cathedral, St Paul's School, The Slade School, Vanessa Bell, Virginia Woolf, Westminster School of Art, WWI, WWII | 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, novels, Oisín Fagan, Oxford, parents, plays, Poetry, publishing, revolution, Roy Keane, Russians, short stories, South Park, Spectator, terrorism, the Kaddish, Tolstoy, torture, WWI, xkcd | Comments (0)

Portrait of a ‘lady’ – Constance Markievicz, by Sarah Purser

Friday, November 30, 2018

Tonight, the Irish journalist Mary Kenny has a play on at the Irish Cultural Centre. Entitled Dearest Old Darling, it’s based on letters sent between the Dublin feminist, socialist, communist, Sinn Fein MP (elect, but never sitting) Constance Markievicz – née Gore-Booth – and her sister Eva. My great-great-great-aunt, Sarah Purser, portraitist, landscape artist, and […]

Filed in correspondence, Journalism | Also tagged Académie Julian, air travel, An Túr Gloine, aristocracy, bathing, Brendan Behan, burglary, Communism, Constance Markievicz, Count Casimir Markievicz, Douglas Hyde, Dublin, Elizabeth Coxhead, Eva Gore-Booth, exploration, feminism, France, Georgina Gore-Booth, grandmothers, Guinness, Huguenots, Ireland, Jack Yeats, James Joyce, John Butler Yeats, John O'Grady, Kathleen Kearney, Lady Gregory, landlords, letters, Lissadell, Mary Kenny, Maud Gonne, Municipal Gallery of Modern Art, National Gallery of Ireland, Oliver Gogarty, politics, portraits, religion, Roger Casement, Rome, Royal Dublin Society, Royal Hibernian Academy of Arts, Sarah Purser, Sinn Fein, Sir Henry Gore-Booth, Sligo, socialism, stained glass, the Arctic, the British, the Irish Cultural Centre, theatre, Yeats | Comments (0)

Brue meets gel

Tuesday, September 4, 2018

About the Bruegels on my bedroom wall. — For The Oldie

Filed in correspondence, Journalism | Also tagged AA Gill, anatomy, art, Athena International, Bath, Brussels, Carmina Burana, chickens, childhood, death, Don DeLillo, drawing, drink, etching, Flanders, Fleet Foxes, gambling, Jean-Claude Lebensztejn, Jürgen Müller, Kunsthistorisches Museum, Nabokov, peasantry, Pieter Bruegel the Elder, Pieter Bruegel the Younger, pissing, religion, TASCHEN, the Duke of Alba, the Habsburgs, The Holburne Museum, The Oldie, the Spanish Inquisition, the tower of Babel, Thomas Schauerte, Tom Frantzen, Vienna, war, weddings, WH Auden | Comments (0)