A S H Smyth › On Commonwealth Day

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On Commonwealth Day

Monday, March 14, 2022

… my diaries relate a (very positive) diplomatic incident from 15 years ago. — For The Emigre

Filed in correspondence, Journalism | Also tagged Afghanistan, America, Australia, Basildon, Burundi, Canada, China, diplomacy, drink, finance, Gary Busey, Guinness, Ireland, London, Malaysia, marijuana, Myanmar, oaths, Queen Elizabeth II, Red Bull, Russia, Rwanda, Soho, Somaliland, South Sudan, Suriname, Tanzania, The Commonwealth of Nations, The Emigre, the Falklands, Zimbabwe | Comments (0)

Late-teen condenses Seamus Heaney

Thursday, September 30, 2021

war/conflict/Troubles land modern history of Ireland personal identity religion rural landscape vs industrialisation loyalty to roots vs leaving silence vs talking place language: Gaelic, Anglo-Saxon, Latin, English farming vs academia invasion (poignant) .

Filed in Poetry | Also tagged books, Found poetry, GCSEs, Ireland, Poetry, Seamus Heaney | Comments (0)

NEWS AT A GLANCE

Monday, May 25, 2020

. The barnacles are scraped off British men-of-war twice a year..5 — The Nelson Evening Mail, Thursday, September 6 1906 . Wicca is the fastest-growing religion in the UK after Islam. The Dutch term for a sex buddy is ‘seksbuddy’. George I and his prime minister conversed officially in dog Latin. Irish 6th-formers know what The Communist Manifesto is […]

Filed in Journalism, NEWS AT A GLANCE | Also tagged carparks, crime, Dutch, employment, Fred C Trump, George I, Harvard, irony, Islam, Kalutara, Karl Marx, Latin, law, museums, Nations Trust Bank, Nelson Evening Mail, New York, news, politics, Port Said, property, religion, Royal Navy, satire, seafood, sex, the British, the Irish, Unitarians, Utilitarians, Walter Rothschild, war, Wicca | Comments (0)

Bleak Howzat!?— Charles Dickens pays a visit to The Cricket Club

Monday, November 26, 2018

(in loving memory of its former incarnation) . Colombo. The Galle and Pallakele matches lately over, the series lost, and the selectors falling back on Maitland Place in hopes of inspiration for the third and final test. The last of the erratic rains now gone, the water in the half-uncovered sewers stagnant, rank with garbage. […]

Filed in Fictions | Also tagged Australia, Bambalapitiya, Bata, bats, buses, chicken, Cinnamon Gardens, Colombo, cricket, crows, Dickens, dogs, Don Bradman, Eden Gardens, frangipani, Galle Pallakele, Greg Chappell, Havelock Town, hotels, Ian Botham, India, Lion lager, Lord's, Maitland Place, Mount Lavinia, Muttiah Muralitharan, Newlands, newspapers, parties, R Premadasa International Cricket Stadium, Shane Warne, Slave Island, Sri Lanka, the British Council, the Chinese, The Cricket Club Café, the English, The Oldie, the West Indies, Wasim Akram | Comments (2)

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, music, Napoleon, oratorio, Oxford University, Poetry, religion, 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)

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, Roald Dahl, Russell Crowe, 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)

Temper, temper

Monday, December 1, 2008

How Equal Temperament Ruined Harmony (and Why You Should Care) Ross W. Duffin W.W. Norton, £9.99, p196 . When William Gardiner lamented in 1832 that ‘the Deity seems to have left music in an unfinished state’ he was referring to a seeming paradox of tuning: if you start from C and keep adding fifths, twelve […]

Filed in Journalism, review | Also tagged academia, equal temperament, harmony, Mozart, music, Music Teacher, non-fiction, orchestras, Ross W Duffin, WW Norton | Comments (0)