I’ve come a bit late to Rokia Traore’s most recent record Tchamantché, and I might have missed it completely but … More
Month: March 2009
Irish routes
I’m going to the north of Ireland on holiday quite soon, so I’m tuned in to stories about Irishness at … More
Poetry: news that isn’t news
Now that Andrew Motion is standing down as Poet Laureate after a ten-year stretch he’s been writing about the experience. … More
Steam and speed
I came across a quote in the Blaenavon World Heritage Centre which captured a passenger’s first experience of train travel: … More
Parker and Stravinsky
Even half a century after his death, when we must know everything there is to be discovered about the life … More
Acts of grace
I’ve always been interested in stories about technique – how stories work – and there’s a good example this weekend … More
Michael Donaghy’s ‘Machines’
The poet Michael Donaghy died suddenly, and relatively young, in 2004 at the age of 50. He was a gifted … More
The wrong genre
You get so used to the routines – or cliches – of sports interviews that it’s always refreshing when something … More
Burrowing on the underground
I’ve always liked artists who play with texts and typography – as Tom Phillips did in his monumental A Humument. … More