PAUL DAVIES assesses the “rewriting of history” seen in the days since Thatcher’s death It was a bright cold day in April, and the clocks were striking thirteen. Winston Smith only had time for a short break from his work at the Ministry of Truth this lunchtime. He had to get back soon; there was [...]
Posts under ‘Culture’
Ding dong the witch is dead – Tories seek to crush power of free market
Apr 12th, 2013 by Jon Lansman.Whatever you think of the good taste of celebratory Thatcher death partying, it is an interesting spectator sport watching the Tories tie themselves up in knots over a chart-topping Wizard of Oz song and whether the BBC should permit the “free market” in music downloads to determine what it plays (admission: I’ve downloaded two versions [...]
Man Ray, high-modernism and a bizarre shaped bowler hat
Apr 4th, 2013 by Jack Dunleavy.Born in Philadelphia in 1890, Emmanuel Radnitzky – better known as Man Ray, was a pioneering American Modernist. His work in sculpture, painting, film and most significantly photography helped widen the definition of ‘Art’ in the early part of the 20th century, as well as providing a fascinating document of Bohemian life in the Paris [...]
Physical space is the focus for the left once again
Mar 9th, 2013 by Keith Wright.For many, the firebombing of the Freedom Press anarchist bookshop in Whitechapel last month was shocking – not only in its vicious nature, but also in the revelation that London still had such an institution. But as the Press struggle to get the pamphlets moving once again, the incident offers a more potent message to [...]
Wear your colours for Emily’s centenary
Mar 4th, 2013 by Mark Perryman.04.06.1913 One hundred years ago the Epsom Derby was disrupted by perhaps the most famous protest at a sporting event in history. Britain at the time was bitterly divided. The early Trade Unions and others striking against poverty wages and appalling working conditions. The cause for Ireland’s Freedom was attracting support on both sides of [...]
The Spirit of ’45
Feb 24th, 2013 by Newsdesk.Ken Loach’s latest film, The Sprit of ’45, is in cinemas from 15 March. A retrospective but with a clear contemporary purpose. Looking back through the enthusiasm and commitment of his interviewees at archive footage about reconstruction and the creation of the welfare state, it nevertheless focusses on the current dismantlement of the NHS and [...]
Remembering ‘The Feminine Mystique’ today
Feb 19th, 2013 by Carl Packman.On the 19 February 1963, a book was published that has since been credited with providing the spark for second-wave feminism in the United States. The Feminine Mystique, by Betty Friedan, highlighted what she called “the problem with no name” – that is the unhappiness of women in the 1950s and early 1960s. Why did it [...]
The compulsive radio of a fascinating, worrying interview
Feb 16th, 2013 by Keir McCormack.“I’m a painfully truthful person often to the point of self-immolation or self-destruction,” said Julie Burchill appearing on Desert Island Discs. Burchill was bound to draw an audience, and only a few weeks after the BBC programme hosted its dream guest Aung San Suu Kyi. We were certainly in for some self-immolation. Burchill’s mantra was [...]
Translated today. Or maybe yesterday; I don’t know.
Feb 16th, 2013 by Jack Dunleavy.Albert Camus’ novel The Outsider is the subject of a new Penguin translation. For JACK DUNLEAVY, re-translation is a necessity, not to provide a definitive edition but to remind us that reading French texts in English is ‘at best an equivalent and at worst an approximation of the original’. In the past 5 or so [...]
How relevant is Kropotkin today?
Feb 8th, 2013 by Carl Packman.I recall a point in my youth when I took to the streets of London in celebration of May Day. Once the day had started to settle and the Trots entered the pubs, the anarchists started to congregate in the middle of Trafalgar Square. One very young boy mounted a statue in the square and [...]
