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A book to sort you out apiece
A viral disease is sweeping the world, killing indiscriminately. Well, nearly. Its fatal impact is concentrated in a particular minority, one that many in society seem to regard as expendable, as less valuable than the average. At least in the ongoing coronavirus pandemic, it’s socially unacceptable to vilify older people openly, or to characterise their… Read more
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A play on the screen
I think of Shallow Grave as a film I know, but on reflection I think I saw it once, on TV, within a couple of years of its original release. It’s Danny Boyles’s first feature, Ewan McGregor’s cinematic debut, and an early milestone in the careers of Christopher Eccleston and Kerry Fox. It caused a… Read more
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For Pete’s sake!
In 1983 or 1984, I had a good look around Charles Jencks’s Thematic House, then recently completed. It is now the only Grade I listed building in the Ladbroke Conservation Area in Kensington, owing to its unique importance as an early example of Postmodern architecture. I was given a thorough and discursive tour by Jencks,… Read more
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Free play
One might be forgiven for thinking that the Joel and Ethan Coen made Barton Fink in order to dispel suspicions lingering in the wake of Miller’s Crossing that they would like to make a film which took some money at the box office. Miller’s Crossing was a financial flop and a critical success, but it… Read more
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Worth digging
Funk Factory is something of a period piece. It comes from an era where the boundaries between jazz fusion and funk were widely blurred, and it combines complexities appropriate to the former with the kind of pop silliness associated with the latter—along with some stunning grooves, of course. Funk Factory was a band that, as… Read more
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Reunion tour
Unspecified possibilities are the stuff of optimism. At the end of Danny Boyle’s Trainspotting, when Renton strolls off into the sunset with a bag of cash, we don’t know what will happen next for him, but we know he’s decided to choose life. He’s going to go and find fulfilment, as any young man should… Read more
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