This week I have been reading the Penguin Classics edition of Sappho’s poetry (Stung With Love: Poems and Fragments). It is a wonderful little book full of extraordinary language. One thing that made me stop was this bit from Aaron Poochigian’s introduction The Spartan poet Alcman’s First and Third Panthenia (‘Maiden’s Songs’, seventh century BCE) […]
…and also the department of, in the politics of image control, the more things change, the more things stay the same. “A distinguished scholar of Macedonia and Alexander, the Cambridge historian GT Griffith, once observed with a certain amount of frustration: “It is one of the paradoxes of history (and of historiography) that this king… […]
There is, when you think about it, a surprisingly long list of very good films about boxing. Consider just the biopics: Raging Bull (the story of Jake LaMotta); Somebody Up There Likes Me (Rocky Marciano); The Hurricane (Rubin Carter); Gentleman Jim (Jim Corbett); Cinderella Man (James J Braddock); and The Fighter (Micky Ward). On top […]
I have been thinking recently that a lot of the science fiction books I’ve read in the last few months are particularly cruel about the lives of ordinary people. Take this passage by James Lovegrove in Redlaw, which attacks The Daily Mail reader mentality: “There’s a reason why that rag is as popular as it […]
Well, I nominated four of the five shortlisted novels for this year’s BSFA Award (and Kim Lakin-Smith’s Cyber Circus came close to getting a nod too) so I can’t complain about the shortlist. Cyber Circus by Kim Lakin-Smith (Newcon Press) Embassytown by China Mieville (Macmillan) The Islanders by Christopher Priest (Gollancz) By Light Alone by […]
Somewhere in the heart of Love is a very good short film being brutally battered to death by a writer/director intent on driving home his “VERY IMPORTANT MESSAGE” without subtlety. That’s not to say that there aren’t good things in Love, but you have to work to dig them out from a film that is […]
If you’re a member of the BSFA and you didn’t get around to nominating your favourite novels, short stories, non-fiction and artwork for this year’s awards then you’ve got a final chance… You can email your nominations to awards@bsfa.co.uk or you can go here and fill in the form. You have until 10:00pm Thursday 19 […]
I’ve never avoided cracks in the pavements. I stroll with insouciance (but appropriate care, I’m not stupid) beneath ladders. I don’t check my horoscopes. I’ve never even sacrificed a small animal in the hope that its freshly spewed innards would provide some an insight into the future. I have never been superstitious. Never, that is, […]
The last time the Labour Party lost its place as the “natural party of government” at the end of the Wilson/Callaghan era in the late 1970s, the party descended into internal chaos and a state of open warfare existed between three poles in the party – the left and right of the Party hated each […]
So it’s that time of year again, the deadline for nominations to the BSFA Awards is fast approaching (midnight on 13 January, if you haven’t done your duty yet) so it’s time to think about what I’d like to see on the shortlist. You can see what others have nominated here. NOVELS As usual lots […]