Category: this is london
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In his latest book 50 Literature Ideas You Really Need to Know, John Sutherland says this about Hamlet: “Every age interprets the play’s enigmas differently, sometimes wildly so (is Hamlet mad, enquired Oscar Wilde; or merely the critics of Hamlet?).…
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“Wish You Were Here? Postcards from the Future” is an exhibition of fourteen digitally-transformed photomontages of recognisable London landmarks by Robert Graves and Didier Madoc-Jones showing at the Museum of London. These images depict the possible impact of climate change…
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Last December, we went to see Alan Bennett’s new play, The Habit of Art, which is about an imaginary meeting between W.H. Auden and Benjamin Britten (this is in a way similar to Adam Fould’s novel The Quickening Maze, which…
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On Tuesday, we went to see Alan Ayckbourn‘s Season’s Greetings at the National Theatre. Jeff lined up early in the morning to take advantage of the NT’s day ticket policy.1 They hold back a number of tickets to sell on the day,…
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“Champaign and cinnamon candle”. Photo courtesy of E & S On Christmas Eve, two friends visited us and we spent a joyous afternoon and evening together, eating, drinking, chatting and playing games. Happy times. The picture above was taken by them. May all our…
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Learn more here.–
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– “Truth is in my heart, and in my breast there is neither craft nor guile. — The Egyptian Book of the Dead. –Today we went to the British Museum to see the Journey through the afterlife: ancient Egyptian Book of the…
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Picture courtesy of JP. WRITTEN IN SNOW –by t We extinguished two glasses of port,drained the lamp,transfigured from dressed to undressed. Both…
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On 2nd December, 2009, I posted these Banksy images on my previous blog: Responses: [Click image to enlarge] Recently, I watched Exit Through the Gift Shop. It’s a reasonably enjoyable film, and one of the highlights, for me, is this counterfeited tenner: –
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Aaron Johnson is handsome (and young!). We watched Sam Taylor-Wood’s Nowhere Boy, a film about the young John Lennon, played rather convincingly, I must say, by Aaron Johnson. However, he is certainly not as good as Kristin Scott Thomas, who…
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Love & Other Drugs – Last night we went to watch Love & Other Drugs in Covent Garden. Thank you, E, for the generosity! On the film: Anne, you are no Kate Winslet or Penelope Cruz (with reference to her own…
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The historian sent me this picture and I love it, for obvious reasons.
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This post was originally written on 5th July, 2009. – Yesterday we spent an evening in Islington. It was a beautiful day and we sat by Regent’s Canal and had a drink from the Narrow Boat Pub (Beer in a…
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This morning, my friend sent me this picture, a close-up of a phone booth by the river. – –
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Last Saturday after a day in the city, we went to the Serpentine Gallery in Hyde Park to see an exhibition by the Paris-based French-Algerian artist Philippe Parreno (b. 1964). The exhibition has been getting a lot of attention for its…
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Scene 1 A restaurant. Leeds. J: Can we see the wine list, please? Waitress: Yes, you may. Scene 2 A second-hand bookstore. Central London. Shopkeeper (to me): How may I help you, honey? J: She’s with me. Shopkeeper: Oh I…
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SEE MORE PICTURES HERE. When it comes to collecting, I have nothing on Robert Opie. Opie is an avid collector of consumer products and packaging which are on display at The Museum of Brands, Packaging and Advertising in Notting Hill.…
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Thursday 9 December, 2010. 10:30am.
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Yesterday, my friend sent me this picture, taken from a moving bus. – –
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This post was originally written on 9th September, 2009. Foyles Bookstore, London Tonight we saw John Banville (who is also Benjamin Black) at a free author’s talk organised by the Foyles Bookstore. In the event, Banville discussed his latest novel,…
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I was gripped from the opening seconds of Kathryn Bigelow’s The Hurt Locker about an elite Army bomb squad whose main job is to defuse roadside bombs. The film uses suspense masterfully to suggest the tension and fear of the…
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Baozi Inn, ChinatownSaturday 4th Decemer, 2010, 12:30pm
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–The Ghost is based on the novel by Robert Harris of the same title. We thought it was a fine old-fashioned thriller; it reminded one of both Hitchcock and the paranoid thrillers of the 1970s. Directed by Roman Polanski, the…
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Seen at the South Kensington tube station on a Saturday afternoon
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Outside lands contiguous with China, emigration has never been promoted by the Chinese state. The spread of Chinese cooking around the world has therefore been colonial but not imperial, carried by peaceful migrants in self-imposed “economic exile.” At least, this…
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–The Welsh documentary sleep furiously1 by Gideon Koppel records a year of life in Trefeurig, a small farming community in Wales. The film does not have an obvious structure or narrative. But in its formless way, it documents the slow…
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This post was originally written on 6th September, 2009. District 9 (official website: www.d-9.com) is about the problems posed by the unexpected arrival of an alien spaceship above Johannesburg, South Africa. When humans board the aliens’ hovering ship (which reminds…
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Moon is a great film. It reminded me of 2001: A Space Odyssey (1968), Solaris (1972) and even Blade Runner (1982). The film centres on Sam Bell (played marvellously by Sam Rockwell), a miner living alone in a space station…
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by Tammy Lai-Ming Ho(This post was originally written on 14 February 2010.) . As many of you know, I am currently on a blog break. However, after seeing the National Theatre’s revival (actually, the return of the revival) of…
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