It’s always been a challenge to compress my life into tidy, coherent narratives full of hidden meanings and uniting threads with distinguishable identity signposts that give audiences an obvious sense of who this person is. My artistic identity has, in many ways, been an attempt to seek some form of ‘personal style,’ by tossing together … Read more
As I sauntered from the Old Bailey past the RCJ the Banksy painting caricaturing a judge attacking a protester was no longer even a ghostly shadow, but it very much remains in the public domain, after reports emerged that it had been reported as criminal damage. On September 25, on Old Brompton Road, a comprehensive … Read more
Richard Midwinter arrived early at the Garrick and on entering the theatre was struck by a large eighteenth century painting in the foyer of a man with his arm around a stone bust of Shakespeare. Quite a striking image, he thought. Midwinter, himself an actor, stood for a moment staring at the playwright, in the … Read more
The Revolutionary Andrée Blouin, 1921-1986 A hungry child can never truly sleep. In the orphanage for sinful offspring – our fathers white, our mothers African – the nuns were merciless, severe. I shook by night inside a narrow, iron cot, aware only of my body’s hunger, a heavy shadow shuttering my limbs. I prayed for … Read more
The title of this article may seem somewhat prosaic, but given that it really is about birth after death it seems appropriate. For I really did die on July 25 2022, and that which came back to life was not the same person, and certainly not the same doctor. Prior to 2020 I hadn’t asked … Read more
He put on the yellow marigolds with some difficulty, while at the same time remembering something a wise Roman stoic had once written that went ‘dig inside yourself. Inside there is a well of goodness ready to gush at any moment, if you keep digging,’ and wondered if he had learned the line while studying … Read more
Many of those featuring in this series wrote top class journalism, including Albert Camus, Noam Chomsky, Voltaire and George Orwell. None of them, however, are pre-eminently or exclusively associated with their journalism. There is one intellectual who is however. That of course is Christopher Hitchens – the non pareil journalist of our recent age, and … Read more
Since before I can remember, music has been my world, and a path that I had to follow. I feel so grateful to be able to channel my feelings, emotions, heart, and experiences into music that can touch others. To be a bridge in the dark between strangers that illuminates our shared human experiences. My … Read more
Terry Fagan is a renowned Irish local historian and storyteller from Dublin’s North Inner City. Born in the 1950s and raised in the historic heart of what was once Europe’s largest red-light district, the Monto, Fagan witnessed firsthand the rapid transformation, and often erasure, of the surrounding Dublin tenements and their culture. He is, to … Read more
Todo lo que vemos o nos parece, no es sino un ensueño en un ensueño! ‘Everything we see or seem to see is nothing but a dream within a dream’ – Ruben Dario My father was cremated in Dublin, but he belonged to the heat. In Ireland, he carried Nicaragua on his shoulders—low, heavy, as … Read more