Researching Marienbad and the Savoy led me to Erika Mann and all the gossip, scandal, politics, and drama of her family. I wanted to read her account of life in pre-war Germany The Lights Go Down in part of my preparation for the 1940 Club and here. I couldn’t track down a copy so I read School for Barbarians: Education…
I follow the art historian Richard Morris on Twitter and his tweets are a daily delight – each one providing a insight into a painter, a period, a life, or work of art. This week he referenced the Guardian obituary of the wonderful writer Ronald Blythe who has just died at the age of 100. Here’s the tweet: ‘Winter Evening,…
A novel by Kate Atkinson is always something to look forward to and I’ve just finished reading her latest – The Shrines of Gaiety. As always, she does not disappoint. This character-rich, picaresque romp through the underbelly of the world of the Bright Young Things of London in the 1920s is what is known as a good read. The Great…
My heart sinks down when I behold A rainbow in the street. With the end of June, in sight, I’m hoping for a break from the corporate waterboarding of the rainbow flag and its ever-morphing journey toward meaninglessness and cultural oblivion. With all this “pride”, eleven months of shame might be a relief. I realize that this is more than…
Carole Robertson (14), Carol Denise McNair (11), Addie Mae Collins (14), and Cynthia Wesley (14) died on September 15, 1963, when a bomb exploded during Sunday morning services at the 16th Street Baptist Church in Birmingham, Alabama. The bombing came just days after the federal ruling came for Alabama to integrate the school system. Four Little Girls, September 15, 1963,…
This post is in answer to the question “Operation Pied Piper: What were they thinking?” At least in terms of the evacuation scheme. The choice of code-name remains ambiguous. It begins with a little history. Napoleon In the first years of the 19th century, Napoleon made no secret of his intention to invade Britain, destroy the monarchy and take…
A friend is reading Steven Johnson’s The Ghost Map: The Story of London’s Most Terrifying Epidemic–and How It Changed Science, Cities, and the Modern World – and she’s been regaling me with stories of toshers, pure-finders, mudlarks and the sewers of Victorian London. Here’s how the book begins: It is August 1854, and London is a city of scavengers. Just…
In September we heard Ta-Nehisi Coates in conversation with Oprah Winfrey at the Apollo in NYC. The topic was his first novel The Water Dancer and the ticket price included a copy of the book. The conversation was interesting – Oprah is really good at this kind of thing and she clearly loved the book. And so did I. It’s…
The sandwich was no comfort, it was a pale limp thing a long way from the déjeuner sur l’herbe of her imagination. . . . Recently she had bought a new book, by Elizabeth David — A Book of Mediterranean Food. A hopeful purchase. The only olive oil she could find was sold in her local chemist in a small bottle. ‘For softening…
Two Sundays, two documentaries and two very satisfactory movie experiences. The first was Maiden at The Moviehouse in Millerton, NY. The second Toni Morrison: The Pieces I am at Upstate Films in Rhinebeck. And before say anything about either film I have to comment on the pleasure of film-going at Indy cinemas like these. Two recent movie going experiences at…
I was intrigued when I discovered that I am distantly related to the last person beheaded in England. The year is 1817 and the place Derbyshire. Isaac Ludlam was one of three men executed at Derby gaol. His head was cut from his corpse and shown to the thousands in the crowd. This was not a story handed down in…
David Lammy is the Labour MP for Tottenham. He made the speech and took the stand that many of us hoped that Jeremy Corbyn would lead the party with. Didn’t happen. If you follow British politics in any degree beyond zero then you may well have seen this video of David Lammy addressing the House of Commons on the shame…
I’m early but the staffroom is already blue with smoke and full of strangers who know each other. A row of hard back chairs beneath the window and a long table cluttered with books and papers and ashtrays. This is the old staffroom next door to the head’s office before renovations moved the room up a floor and tripled the…
The Manumit School was an experimental Christian socialist boarding school in Pawling, NY. and later Bristol, Pennsylvania. Manumit means freedom and release from slavery and this was a school with a clear mission. It was racially integrated, religiously tolerant and worked “toward a world order based upon justice and co-operation, in which the individual may find freedom.” It was founded in…
In Ivor Gurney’s nightmarish vision, the dead among the living bear dire warnings and mockery. Ballad of the Three Spectres As I went up by Ovillers In mud and water cold to the knee, There went three jeering, fleering spectres, That walked abreast and talked of me. The first said, ‘Here’s a right brave soldier That walks the dark unfearingly;…