A S H Smyth › Aguê the Sinister, also called Azizan

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Aguê the Sinister, also called Azizan

Sunday, May 17, 2020

Among the Ewe people of Togo (formerly Togoland), the village of Bé lies at the foot of the Tokoin plateau, between a stagnant lagoon and a sacred wood, the meagre remnant of an ancient equatorial forest that once covered the south of the country in its entirety. Here, the animist bokonon priests and priestesses of the python cult worship the forces of […]

Filed in Fictions | Also tagged Africa, animism, Borges, clothing, Dahomey, fear, Greenland, James Kirkup, Post-modern Bestiary, sadness, snakes, Tété-Michel Kpomassie, Togo, translation | 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, painting, 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)

NEWS AT A GLANCE

Monday, December 2, 2019

. There are more kilts in London than in Scotland. — The Nelson Evening Mail, Thursday, May 9 1907 . At 45% of the population, white Christians are a shrinking demographic in America. Hermal eggings are so leek. No sensitive person would choose to be the historian of the Irish asylums in the first part of the […]

Filed in Journalism, NEWS AT A GLANCE | Also tagged America, children, clothing, drink, ducks, English, food, goldfish, health, Hegel, history, holidays, humour, London, madness, Nelson Evening Mail, new, politics, Rioja, Robert Southey, Russia, satire, Scotland, Smak, Spinoza, the Irish, WG Grace | Comments (0)

NEWS AT A GLANCE

Monday, October 28, 2019

. During one year a high police official in New York was offered £120,000 in bribes to “look the other way.” — The Nelson Evening Mail, Tuesday, June 22 1909 . The night is chilly to a man without clothes. You get a free tote bag if you subscribe to almost anything. Sussex folk have few superstitions. There […]

Filed in Journalism, NEWS AT A GLANCE | Also tagged Americans, bags, books, clothing, cricket, crime, death, elephants, garlic, Glasgow University, international affairs, mental health, monarchy, money, Nelson Evening Mail, news, Pocahontas, rabies, satire, sex, sleep, Sussex, the English, the Irish, the Lonely Planet, Thomas Mann, towns, travel, trees, weather | Comments (0)

Briefs from the field

Friday, October 11, 2019

RAIN MEN vs WHITE HUNTERS Sunday August 11th 2019 . ‘Remarkably few ‘keepers have become captains; and many of those who have have quickly given up the job.’ — Mike Brearley, The Art of Captaincy . On strict assurance that he was about to leave the country, the Chairman, Selectors, and Life Members/Platinum Donors Circle of […]

Filed in correspondence, Journalism | Also tagged Bertrand Russell, Bumble, captaincy, cars, conkers, cricket, dogs, Dulwich College, East Hampshire, Formula 1, Guy Burgess, Marcus Berkmann, Mike Brearley, Poetry, Rain Men, rules, Skittles, taxidermy, Thomas Lord, trees, West Meon, White Hunters, X-Men | Comments (0)

Islamic cities

Thursday, October 10, 2019

Review of Justin Marozzi’s Islamic Empires: Fifteen Cities that Define a Civilization. — For Geographical

Filed in Journalism, review | Also tagged Allen Lane, Arabs, architecture, Baghdad, Beirut, Cairo, Constantinople, Cordoba, Damascus, death, Doha, Dubai, Geographical, history, Isfahan, Islam, Jerusalsm, Justin Marozzi, Kabul, Mecca, money, non-fiction, Royal Geographical Society, Samarkand, travel, Tripoli, war | Comments (0)

NEWS AT A GLANCE

Monday, September 30, 2019

. Football was a crime in England during the reign of Henry VIII. — The Nelson Evening Mail, Tuesday, October 2 1906 . The moon is up for longer than the sun. Your antivirus expires in 29 days. The Dogmata Theologica of Petavius are a work of incredible labour and compass. The steep limestone walls of a […]

Filed in Journalism, NEWS AT A GLANCE | Also tagged America, anatomy, astronomy, books, eggs, England, expectoration, football, geology, health, Henry VIII, homosexuality, humanity, law, money, Nelson Evening Mail, Oscar Wilde, pachyderms, Petavius, Russians, satire, scholarship, Sri Lanka, the Chinese, university, war | Comments (0)

Black samurai

Thursday, May 23, 2019

Yasuke: The True Story of an African Samurai by Thomas Lockley and Geoffrey Girard Sphere £20 (hardback) . In late July 1579, an enormous, well-dressed and well-armed African bodyguard stepped off a boat into the southern Japanese port of Kochinotsu. Yasuke – perhaps from ‘Isaac’ in Amharic – had (probably) been abducted as a child […]

Filed in Journalism, review | Also tagged Alessandro Valignano, Amharic, China, Christianity, Ethiopia, Geoffrey Girard, Geographical, Japan, Japanese, Jesuits, samurai, the East Indies, Thomas Lockley, war | Comments (0)

NEWS AT A GLANCE

Monday, May 13, 2019

. Thomas King was fined 12s, or eight days’ hard labour, at the Thames Police Court for intoxication. While in this state he asked a pawnbroker to advance 2s on a baby. — The Nelson Evening Mail, Wednesday, April 10 1907 . There are 2000 non-functioning satellites in space. Lord Reith did not want people to enjoy […]

Filed in Journalism, NEWS AT A GLANCE | Also tagged Aethelred the Unready, America, anatomy, babies, Ceylon, crime, drink, education, Indians, James Joyce, jungles, Lord Reith, money, Nelson Evening Mail, Panama, radio, seafood, shipping, space, tea, the Japanese, war | 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, painting, politics, portraits, 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)