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Tag Archives: Spectator

Peak fitness: a virtual expedition diary

Thursday, April 16, 2020

Climbing a mountain, lest I start climbing the walls In January, I promised a visiting Reservist mate that we’d climb Adam’s Peak. That plan was scotched when, days before he landed, I went down with dengue fever. But I’d done Adam’s Peak before (the first time, Christmas ’04, probably saved my life when the tsunami struck…), and […]

Filed in feature, Journalism | Also tagged Adam's Peak, Adidas, army, boredom, Buddhism, Christianity, cigars, coffee, Colombo, David Balfour, David Sharp, Everest, Fa-Hsien, Forrest Gump, health, Hinduism, Ibn Battuta, Islam, Marco Polo, meteorology, mosquitoes, mountaineering, music, Neighbours, podcasts, River Kwai, Sinhala, Sri Lanka, stairs, Tamil, the Bible, The Mahavamsa, the Matterhorn, The West Wing, Thomas Tallis, Zumba | Comments (1)

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, novels, Ohio, Philip Glass, pies, presidents, Revere Ware, Schubert, Shakespeare, shopping, 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, novels, Oisín Fagan, Oxford, painting, parents, plays, Poetry, publishing, revolution, Roy Keane, Russians, short stories, South Park, terrorism, the Kaddish, Tolstoy, torture, WWI, xkcd | Comments (0)

Fair tradesmen

Thursday, December 14, 2017

Review of a Norwegian book on loft conversions. (Standard.) — For The Spectator

Filed in Journalism, review | Also tagged carpentry, employment, MacLehose Press, non-fiction, Norway, Norwegian, Ole Thorstensen, Seán Kinsella, translation | Comments (0)

We were musketeers once, and young

Saturday, February 18, 2017

Long, ‘lost’ sequel to The Three Musketeers, reviewed. — For The Spectator

Filed in Journalism, review | Also tagged birds, Cardinal Richelieu, Dumas, France, Louis XIII, musketeers, novels | Comments (0)

NEWS AT A GLANCE

Monday, January 23, 2017

. Omnibuses in Holland are fitted with letter-boxes. — The Nelson Evening Mail, July 13 1908 . A ‘havelock’ is the flap of cloth that hangs down from a soldier’s kepi, to protect the neck. Donald Trump’s inauguration as the 45th president of the United States drew bigger crowds to Washington DC than any previous inauguration. The […]

Filed in Journalism, NEWS AT A GLANCE | Also tagged anatomy, army, cards, Donald Trump, Duff Cooper, education, Giles Coren, hats, health, Holland, James Joyce, Jeffrey Bernard, Jim Norton, music, novels, otters, post, Pratt's, Rhodes, The Times, Tunbridge Wells, Washington, WW2 | Comments (0)

Heroes in error

Saturday, August 6, 2016

Review of War Porn. — For The Spectator

Filed in Journalism, review | Also tagged Americans, death, Iraq, novels, pornography, Roy Scranton, war | Comments (0)

Missing in action

Saturday, June 18, 2016

Review of A Long Watch: War, Captivity and Return in Sri Lanka. — For The Spectator

Filed in Journalism, review | Also tagged Ajith Boyagoda, books, LTTE, memoir, navy, Sri Lanka, Sunila Galappatti, war | Comments (0)

Bollcks to the new-born king!

Monday, December 7, 2015

Troll(ing) the ancient Yuletide carol. — For The Spectator

Filed in correspondence, Journalism | Also tagged carols, Christmas, finance, music, religion, singing | Comments (0)

Our foreign colleagues

Tuesday, May 19, 2015

Review of Tell Spring Not to Come This Year. — For The Spectator

Filed in Journalism, review | Also tagged Afghanistan, Americans, documentary, film, Michael McEvoy, NATO, Saeed Taji Farouky, war | Comments (0)