Home > Clive Davis

Saturday 17 May 2008

Spectator 180th Anniversary Blog
 

The latest culture as recommended by our staff

Peter Hoskin

Pete suggests


Wednesday, 14th May 2008

Splinters

5:36pm

As I spent part of my childhood being bored rigid by Jehovah's Witnesses, and part of my late teens having exactly the same done to me by would-be evangelists from the Militant Tendency, I find it hard to take an interest in the strange after-life of the Revolutionary Communist Party. Still, the blog coverage of Boris's newly appointed cultural advisor, Munira Mirza [left] is pretty diverting. The director of the Social Affairs Unit weighs in:

While the Revolutionary Communist Party has ostensibly dissolved itself, its former personnel are still much in evidence and are still operating as a tight-knit group...Munira Mirza herself runs what in less charitable times would have been described as a front organisation - the Manifesto Club. Its strap-line is "history is still young". This might seem just an anodyne bit of snappy copy, but it fits rather well
...

Continue reading...

Email to a friend  |   Permalink  |   Comments (3)

Hitchens & Israel

10:51am

His contrarian thoughts on the nation's 60th anniversary: 

I find that no other question so much reminds me of F. Scott Fitzgerald and his aphorism about the necessity of living with flat-out contradiction. Do I sometimes wish that Theodor Herzl and Chaim Weizmann had never persuaded either the Jews or the gentiles to create a quasi-utopian farmer-and-worker state at the eastern end of the Mediterranean? Yes. Do I wish that the Israeli air force could find and destroy all the arsenals of Hezbollah and Hamas and Islamic Jihad? Yes. Do I think it ridiculous that Viennese and Russian and German scholars and doctors should have vibrated to the mad rhythms of ancient so-called prophecies rather than helping to secularize and reform their own societies? Definitely. Do I feel horror and disgust at the thought that a whole new generation of Arab Palestinians is being born into the dispossession and/or occupation already suffered by their grandparents and even great-grandparents? Absolutely, I do

Email to a friend  |   Permalink  |   Comments (8)

Still supreme

10:35am


Motown star Mary Wilson talks to a journalist during the opening of "The Story of The Supremes" at the V&A in London. Set against the backdrop of the civil rights movement, the exhibition explores the singers' influence on today's music, and the role they played in changing racial perceptions. [Photo credit: Adrian Dennis/AFP/Getty Images]

Email to a friend  |   Permalink  |   Comment

That poll

10:18am

The results are in from The Debatable Land's quest to find the most over-rated and under-rated American presidents. Ronald Reagan and Dwight D. Eisenhower came top in the respective categories. (Which is exactly the choice I made, as it happens.) Alex Massie is at pains to stress that his voting sample was fairly evenly divided between Left and Right. Perhaps he should do one on prime ministers next.

Email to a friend  |   Permalink  |   Comments (2)

Deathly

10:15am

Btw, Alex also records the full details of a Senate resolution which would have made a perfect appendix to one of Evelyn Waugh's minor masterpieces. Let's hear it for the National Funeral Director and Mortician Recognition Day.

Email to a friend  |   Permalink  |   Comment

Search this blog

 

Clive Davis' Blog Roll

Media
  

Time

Newsweek

18DoughtyStreet

Al Jazeera English 

BBC News

France-Amérique

Le Monde

New Statesman

New York Times

Sign and Sight

The Economist

The Guardian 

The Times

The Weekly Standard

Wall St Journal Editorial Page

Washington Post

Washington Times
 

Persuasive
 

James Fallows

George Packer

Gideon Rachman

Faith Central

Faith World

A Don's Life
  

Assertive

 

Andrew Sullivan

Normblog

Harry's Place

Pickled Politics

Alex Massie


Belgravia Dispatch

Iain Dale

Comment Central

Dave Hill

Artistic

About Last Night

Serious Popcorn

Arts & Letters Daily 

Bookslut

Blogcritics

Cinematical

Architecture and Morality

The Playgoer

Lunettes Rouges

Paper Cuts 
 

 
Melodic


 

The Well-Tempered Blog


The Rest Is Noise

RightWingBob

Rifftides

On An Overgrown Path

Jessica Duchen

Pensive
 

Democracy in America

Certain Ideas of Europe

Toby Harnden

Brass Neck

Daniel Larison

Marc Ambinder

Chicago Boyz

Jackie Danicki

Dr. Frank

Blognor Regis

Robert Sharp

Crunchy Con 

Combative

Booker Rising


Drink-soaked Trotskyite Popinjays For War

Adloyada

Biased BBC

Martin Peretz

Forensic

Tim Worstall

The Plank

Adam Smith Institute Blog 

Daniel Drezner

Jonathan Derbyshire

RealClimate

The New Culture Forum 

Panoramic

Global Voices


Editor: Myself

Englishman in New York

Slugger O'Toole

Saudi Jeans

Iraq The Model

Big Pharaoh

The Atlantic Review

'Aqoul

The Arabist

Healing Iraq

Alt.Muslim

Barcepundit

Un oeil sur la Chine

English Russia

Crossroads Arabia

Paris Daily Photo

Juan Cole

The American Lady

Communal

Mick Hartley


Bloggers4Labour

Crooked Timber

The Huffington Post

Comment is Free

James Wolcott

Martin Bright

Digital

BuzzMachine


RConversation

Loïc Le Meur

John Naughton

Roy Greenslade

Shane Richmond

SacredFacts

Dave Sifry

Adrian Monck

Quizzical

Madame Arcati


Mickey Kaus

More Than Mind Games

Nourishing obscurity

Open University

Peter Feldhaus - Human Factor Photoblog

Pootergeek

Stumbling and Mumbling

Susan Hill

The American Scene

Thought Experiments

Spectator recommends

Volvo -The Official Site

Request a brochure, book a test drive or find your Volvo dealer.


Spectator classifieds

UMBRIA

UMBRIA, Niccone Valley.Farmhouse Rental. Newly renovated 400 year old farmhouse, high on the south facing slope of Niccone Valley, on

Cornwall.

AMAZING CORNISH HOUSE previously featured in Vogue Living, available to let during the last 3 weeks of August either on a

City Breaks: PARIS and ROME

PARIS and ROME: over 350 holiday rentals apartments listed: visit www.parisreference.com and www.romanreference.com or call +39 0648 903612.