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Tag Archives: Roald Dahl

The Pelican

Saturday, April 25, 2020

Or; Some Further Notes Towards the Bestiary To the researches of the antiquary and scholar Jorge Luis ‘Vintage’ Borges, a few points offer further context on that most peripatetic of birds in this, our present century. . Learned reports come from South Asia, where the spotted-bill Filipino pelican (phillipensis) is found, with no small irony, only in Cambodia, the Indian peninsular, and in Sri Lanka (or the contemporary […]

Filed in Fictions | Also tagged America, animals, army, babies, basketball, Borges, British Library, Cambodia, Captain Scott, children, Colombo, Corpus Christi College, daughters, death, Egypt, employment, fables, food, Gartagena, General John Guise, Hebrew, hieroglyphs, Horapollo, India, Jesuits, John Grisham, Joseph Hall, King Lear, murder, oil, pelican, Post-modern Bestiary, psychology, Spain, Sri Lanka, St James's Palace, St James's Park, St Jerome, stupidity, the Bible, The Spectator, Thomas Aquinas, US Supreme Court | Comments (0)

theASHtray, vol.13

Saturday, April 28, 2012

David Walliams does Roald Dahl, AA Gill does Mary Beard, and I do children’s literature, Little Britain, Donald Sturrock, Chitty Chitty Bang Bang, The Sunday Times, Romans, the Daily Mail, Cicero, Bettany Hughes, Time Team, the Cambridge Latin Course, constipation, movie posters, The Ides of March, Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas, The English Patient, […]

Filed in column, Journalism | Also tagged AA Gill, art, Bettany Hughes, Cicero, constipation, David Walliams, Donald Sturrock, Edward Albee, Eugene O'Neill, film, history, Kenneth Branagh, Latin, Mary Beard, Max Brod, posters, radio, Romans, The Daily Mail, The Sunday Times, theartsdesk, TV | Comments (0)

Interview(ed)

Thursday, June 9, 2011

(for the British School in Colombo yearbook 2010/11) 1. So, what’s with the beard? After I graduated from the War Studies Faculty at KCL I rather fancied myself as a war correspondent, so I grew the beard. Then I just rather fancied myself. 2. We somehow get the impression that you are always very sarcastic […]

Filed in Fictions, interview | Also tagged Alexander (‘the Great’), Amazonian tribesmen, Arthur Rimbaud, beards, Beethoven, books, Bruce Chatwin, Chooties, Christopher Hitchens, cynicism, Dr Gregory House, Dr Hannibal Lecter, Geoff Dyer, GF Handel, Helen DeWitt, Jacques Kallis, Jeffrey Barnard, Jim Morrison, JM Coetzee, John Nash, John Wilmot 2nd Earl of Rochester, literature, Lydia Davis, Margaret Atwood, Maurice Bowra, PE instructors, Peter O’Toole, Philip Seymour Hoffman, piano, Radiohead, Russell Crowe, school, sex, singing, Sir Ranulph Fiennes, Sri Lanka, TE Lawrence, teaching, Thom Yorke, Toby Ziegler, university, War Studies, Wendy Cope, WG Sebald, Yasmina Reza | Comments (0)