The good, the bad and the ugly in books, exhibitions, cinema, TV, dance, music, podcasts and theatre.
‘A world without birds would lay waste the human heart,’ writes Mark Cocker. Following his Birds Britannica and prize-winning Crow Country, in Birds & People he embraces the planet, with the help of the wildlife photographer, David Tipling, and the ‘650 contributors from 81 countries’ to whom the book is dedicated. He begins his cultural
People, they say, want different things from a book over the summer than they do the rest of the year. If, by chance, you are looking for a book that will both give you a hernia and teach you how to make a bridge disappear, this could be just the thing for you. The motorbike
‘I never before came across a man whom I could fancy being a Napoleon or a Nelson…His ascendancy over everybody is quite curious: the extent to which every officer and man feels the slightest praise or rebuke would have been before seeing him incomprehensible.’ Thus wrote the 22-year-old Charles Darwin of Robert Fitzroy, the 26-year-old
So: Russia’s imperial possessions on the Pacific North West of America. Remember those? No. Me neither. Something vague about the Russians flogging a bit of Alaska to the United States in the middle of the 19th century perhaps. But until I’d read this book I didn’t know that at one point Continental Russian America, not
‘Would you mind if I asked what your book is?’ She was in her late-thirties, with dark hair and a serious demeanour. Her reply to my question took a few seconds to appear, the short period in which a woman assesses whether the man sitting opposite her in a not-very-busy Tube carriage in the middle
Rift Valley, Kenya The other day when I told the headmaster of a top British public school that I came from Kenya, he quipped, ‘Ah, still living in Happy Valley?’ We will never shake it off, this idea of a Happy Valley in the equatorial highlands where aristocrats supposedly indulged in orgies and drugs —
A friend of mine who works for the NHS has been told recently by a superior that his ‘attention to detail is bordering on the obsessive’. Aside from observing that an obsessive attention to detail might serve the health service well, this is an example of the kind of insult that Professor Irvine would ascribe
Pastoral elegy is not what you expect to find in a collection of short stories, but then Ali Smith is a wonderfully unexpected writer. In the first story, ‘The Beholder’, which was shortlisted for the Sunday Times Short Story Award, a patient develops a growth on her chest — ‘woody, dark browny, greeny, sort-of circular,
Colonel Eli McCullough, formerly known as Tiehteti, is a living legend. The first male child born in the Republic of Texas, wrested from Mexico in 1836, Eli has miraculously reached the age of 100. Captured by Comanche Indians in boyhood, he mastered their survival skills, and was well on the way to becoming the most
Every so often a programme comes along that completely alters the way you think about something you thought you understood. It’s 60 years since the end of the Korean war on 27 July 1953 and last Friday the World Service marked the occasion by rebroadcasting an interview from the Witness series. These short programmes, often
Bradley Manning’s relationship with Wikileaks has, inevitably, brought Julian Assange back into the papers. Viewed on the frontpage, Assange is egimatic. We know what he’s done; but we know little of him. Alex Gibney’s compelling new documentary film We Steal Secrets: The Story of Wikileaks presents an extensive and revealing biography of Assange — and much more besides.
For over two millennia, the writings of Plato had been at the very core of a Western education. Yet by the dawn of the 21st century, Plato appeared marginalized to the benign pedantry of Classics departments — engagement with his ideas having been spurned by many philosophers and educators over the preceding decades. To many his
From ‘Ulysses’ by Alfred, Lord Tennyson Come, my friends, ‘Tis not too late to seek a newer world. Push off, and sitting well in order smite The sounding furrows; for my purpose holds To sail beyond the sunset, and the baths Of all the western stars, until I die. It may be that the
The Tate Britain has recently undergone a ‘sorely needed’ rehang, which Andrew Lambirth explores in this week’s Spectator. As a ‘welcome return to the great tradition of the chronological hang’ might have its detractors, but the BP Walk Through British Art is, overall, a fantastic display. Here’s the director of Tate Britain, Penelope Curtis (who was
As ever, the Spectator carries some splendid and erudite book reviews this week. There are contributions from stellar writers and thinkers such as Margaret MacMillan, Susan Hill, Alexander Chancellor and John Sutherland. Here is a selection. Margaret MacMillan is captivated by Edwardian Opulence: British Art at the Dawn of the Twentieth Century, a ‘lovely lush
A rare jewel sits in the middle of the Hyde Park Corner roundabout. The Quadrant Gallery, run by English Heritage, occupies the Wellington Arch. The gallery is showing a series of exhibitions to mark the centenary of the 1913 Ancient Monuments Act, a landmark in conservation. The present show (until 15 September) examines efforts to
Watching Burton and Taylor (BBC4, Monday) I felt a bit like I do when I go to the theatre — or, more often, when friends have kindly taken me to the theatre. ‘Are you enjoying it?’ someone will ask. ‘Oh, yes. Very much,’ I’ll lie. For the truth is, no matter how well done it
Frances Ha will make many spit ‘Frances…Bah!’ but I won’t be among them. Yes, it is rather kooky, and highly self-conscious, with its New Wave references and its Woody Allen influences (it’s a serious, black-and-white, Manhattan comedy), but it’s also sweet, endearing, touching, and features proper women you can actually believe in, and who aren’t
West End producers are itching to get their hands on the new show at the Bush. Mama Mia’s director, Phyllida Lloyd, takes charge of a script written by the Torchwood actress Cush Jumbo about the world’s first black female celebrity. Josephine Baker was born to wow the crowds. A child cabaret artiste from St Louis,
There has been much positive comment about the rehang of the Tate’s permanent collection, which sees a welcome return to the great tradition of the chronological hang and thus gives the visitor a chance to see the development of British art from 1545 to today. At last we are permitted a rest from themed displays
‘Lounge suit’ is normally a reliable signifier of supine gentility. But there it was on the invitation to Richard Rogers’s 80th birthday retrospective. Can this be the same architect once praised by a president of RIBA for his admirable ‘sod you’ approach to the public? The same man the Parisians sniffily called an ‘English hippie’
When I was in my late twenties I discovered the joy of drinking alone. Well, perhaps ‘joy’ is putting it too strongly. I’d been thrown out of the flat I shared with one of my closest friends from university after a series of drunken rows about his social-climbing girlfriend. I was living in a converted
David Haig is one of those actors who can’t escape the visual identity of his characters. He’s the sad suburban salaryman. He’s the pasty-faced petty bureaucrat. He’s the bungling office curmudgeon with a volcanic temper. He just looks that way. Except that he doesn’t. I barely recognise the suntanned Bohemian figure who strolls up and
One moment basking in the sun, the next knee-deep in snow astonished at the way these tracks must have filled to the top of their dry-stone walls during the April blizzards. To walk has been the idea since we were small, and so we go on along new paths and old, the way our parents
The licence fee is both a blessing and a curse for the BBC. The clue is in that nickname — Aunty — both affectionate and slightly patronising. Aunty implies that the corporation is a friendly family affair, middle-of-the-road and just a teeny bit desperate to stay in favour, like grown-ups attempting the dance moves of
Richard Strauss’s operatic swansong Capriccio made an elegant and untaxing conclusion to the Royal Opera’s season. It was done in concert, but there was a fair amount of acting, more from some of the participants than others. Renée Fleming as the Countess, who feels she has to choose between a poet and a composer, wrung
Early spring cherry blossom by the tracks — so prim and so dirty, all at once. The bees must be dropping to their knees. For me, it’s after the harvest, only just but even so, a different season. There are elderly women on the platform in beautifully cut coats and expensive shoes. I know that’s
This is a book about Rwanda. It’s a book about cycling. But it’s not, in the end, a book about Rwandan cycling. Well, it is. Tim Lewis gives us the story of Adrien Niyonshuti’s attempts to qualify for the 2012 Olympics under the tutelage of American cycling legend Jock Boyer. Adrien and his teammates are
One more anniversary, one more cache of commemorative books. This time we are celebrating the half-millennium since Niccolò Machiavelli produced his notorious work, The Prince. He wrote it after a significant career blip in 1512, when the Florentine Republic fell and the Medici regained power. Machiavelli was not merely sacked from his job — secretary