If you go, and you should, regularly, to the Clive James website, you’ll now find, in the links on the Cultural Amnesia page, a link to my review. I’m chuffed at that, and so I bring you, by commodious vicus of recirculation back to Topsyturvydom.
To Victoria Baths, star of BBC’s Restoration programme, and also star, I now know, of Life on Mars, for which it provided some atmospheric locations. Our object was to see and hear the Clerks, best known for their performances of medieval and renaissance polyphony – so why are we at the baths? Because, dear reader,… Continue reading Singing in the Baths
Encyclopedia Britannica has made all of its content available to bloggers and other “web publishers”. Which is nice. It means I can link to their “On the Day” feature, which today is about the Warsaw Ghetto Uprising. There was a certain resonance in this, as nestling in my inbox today was the latest “Stop the… Continue reading On this day…
How many millions of words, what seas of verbiage, what torrents of tosh have been expended on the problem of public service broadcasting? And to what end? Into the debate steps Stephen Fry, and in a speech of forty minutes absolutely nails the problem. He was invited to make a contribution to the current inquiry… Continue reading Make this man the DG!
This is a fabulous little film. And most of us will recognise most of these techniques… Thanks to Mister Roy for the tip.
Over at the Muddy Island, Juliet found a fascinating video showing 500 years of women in Western Art. I flippantly suggested that there should be a cat version, and, this being the internet, there is one of course- thanks for finding it Juliet – brilliant. Oh, and please sponsor Juliet on her race for life… Continue reading Morphing Cats
Well, possibly. I certainly would like to compare it to some of my favourites.
Sean O’Brien is one of my favourite poets. His work has always shown its rootedness in tradition, even when questioning that tradition – see Cousin Coat, for instance. Here, in an excellent article, he makes a case for the restoration of the canon in education, before something very precious is lost. He’s right.
Harriet’s comment on my last post prompted me to go back to my Ella collection. She really is the consummate jazz singer, and I agree with Harriet that her Rodgers and Hart interpretations are sublime, though my all time favourite Ella album is The Cole Porter Songbook. There was an interesting programme on Ella in… Continue reading Ella
Nearly letting February go by without a post – good job it’s a leap year and I can just sneak under the wire.Now that my profile doesn’t show a seal picture, the tagline, “the faint aroma of performing seals” is a bit redundant, I suppose. But I’ll leave it, as a reminder of one of… Continue reading The seal