William Morris by Frederick Hollyer, 1884. Photo: National Portriat Gallery, London
William Morris is woven into our lives, sung upon our soul, written into our minds.
When I was a very small child, maybe four years old, I remember laughing at the slapstick of Albert Meltzer being stuck in our armchair. It was low, black wood with green upholstery. Albert, the enormous anarchist, had his plump hands on the velvet arms and was straining to extricate his bulk from between the turned…
For the last few years we have been holidaying at Little Wedlock, owned by Quakers Anne and Malcolm Gregson. Anne is a fine artist who runs a gallery with her daughter. In August, we were treated to her latest collection ‘The Dance of Life and the Dance of Death’, created especially for an exhibition about peace.
‘The Dance of Life’ is a set of four paintings on silk hangings. ‘Forest Green’ has been sold, but the remaining hangings are still part of the exhibition. ‘Life Giving…
Most people who’ve heard of Karen Joy Fowler probably know her through her 2004 New York Times bestseller The Jane Austen Book Club, which got turned into a Hollywood film and was chosen as a title for the Richard & Judy book club. However, if you’ve never read her then you shouldn’t let the latter facts put you off, for Fowler is a delightful writer with a strong feminist sensibility, and this book – comprised of three short stories, an interview and a brief essay – provides an…
In 1956 Oxford University decided to award former US President Harry S Truman an honorary degree. Outraged at his role in the atomic bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, philosopher Elisabeth Anscombe made an impassioned speech against the move, prior to the vote.
For her, killing the innocent as a means to an end was murder. 'If you give this honour, what Nero, what Genghis Khan, what Hitler, or what Stalin will not be honoured in the future?' she implored.
At least two…
James-Lovelock and his daughter Christine collecting air samples in
Adrigole, South West Ireland, 1970. Photo: Irish Examiner.
To say that James Lovelock is a divisive figure in the environmental movement would be a considerable understatement.
Describing himself as an 'old-fashioned green', he is fêted by some for his groundbreaking speculations about the relationship…
In 1978, in a satricial swipe at the burger giant, British sci-fi comic 2000 AD had its fascist anti-hero Judge Dredd visit the nightmarish ‘MacDonald City’ – a dystopia within a dystopia. However, they soon became nervous about libel lawsuits, and the axe finally fell – albeit from a different quarter – when a later episode pitted Dredd against a crazy version of the Jolly Green Giant. Threats of legal action from food giant General Mills forced the comic into publishing a half-…
‘Run!!’ The activist yanked on the plasti-cuffs tying him to the academic. ‘Run THIS way NOW.’
They fled. They fled the tear gas and the screaming and the thud thud thud overhead. They ran through streets littered with abandoned placards, past puddles of blood and reefs of glass. Ducking into shops, out back exits, through alleys and over fences, leaving the terrifying kettle and the mass de-arrest behind them.
***
They walked along the pavement, holding hands as if they…
The absurdly handsome activist bit his lip. The Peace News crew were threatening military action if the final extended deadline for a 2,000 word essay on ‘Activism and Fiction’ was missed. The clock was most definitely two minutes to midnight.
He sighed, ran a hand through his thick shoulder-length blond hair, and thought quickly. His hands flew with perfect acuracy across the keyboard. ‘The four books under review, all by women, are useful and...’
…
PN interviews a nine-year-old with a little experience of warfare-based games, after visiting the exhibition War Games at the Bethnal Green Museum of Childhood.
What did you like about the exhibition? It was interactive and you can say what you think of war games and it’s quite interesting to see games from the past, not just on a computer.
What do you…
Image: Casey.B.Bassett CC-BY-SA-3.0
via Wikimedia Commons
As the longest running sci-fi show in the world, the 50th anniversary episode of Doctor Who was always going to be a big event. It could have easily fallen flat on its face, but luckily ‘The Day of the Doctor’ did not disappoint. Steven Moffat’s excellent story was brilliantly acted, had real heart and the right balance of comedy and seriousness, nods to the past and a marvellous set-up for the future. It…
Over 120 people squeezed into the Bloomsbury Suite at Friends House in London on 17 January to hear renowned US author Adam Hochschild talk about his book To End All Wars – the only recent account of the First World War to foreground the war’s opponents.
According to Hochschild: ‘The First World War changed the world for the worse in every conceivable way, but despite its folly and devastation people in Britain have one thing they should feel proud of. From 1914 to…
I have written here before about The Invisible Insurrection of a Million Minds because, in darkest times, it gives me inspiration and hope. Life is pretty dark at the moment but it’s as well to remember that growth doesn’t stop because it’s winter time and the renewal of spring doesn’t come from nowhere:
Walls will come down
the prisons are burning
under cold ground
warm worms are turning
The unexpected destruction of the Berlin…
In his latest book on the built environment, Owen Hatherley visits 17 towns and cities across Britain, presenting an architecturally-inflected state of the nation.
Part travelogue, part searing political critique, the book takes the form of a series of ‘urban trawls’, bringing the author to ‘some extremely unlovely places’: the Thames Gateway, Belfast, Birmingham, the City of London (‘the satanic site at the heart of the UK’s malaise’).
On each journey, Hatherley…
When I see a man approach and I cast down my eyes
I’m not laying down a hand, I’m not looking for a prize
It’s just a force of habit, this avoiding the male glance
’Cos it isn’t worth the trouble and it isn’t worth the chance
Of them thinking that you’re actively ‘giving them the eye’
And not simply acknowledging a fellow passerby...
And no, I don’t know what they’re thinking but I know what men have thought
And I live by my experiences and the lessons I’…
