“I’ve become like a shame imam”: Interview with Jon Ronson
Jon Ronson’s face pops up on Skype. He peers at me through distinctive round glasses. “Do you mind if I quickly make myself a coffee?” he asks, then proceeds to take the computer around his New York apartment. “Here’s my study,” he says. “Do you want to see my dog? That’s New Jersey
Human wrongs in Geneva
Numerous underground nuclear shelters are now being used to house Geneva’s asylum seekers, out of sight and public knowledge.
Flat whites on Bellenden Road
“Since 2008.” Rammie, who owns a shop and fruit stand under the arches on Rye Lane, gives me a precise timeframe for when Peckham’s property prices became an issue.
The canvas of literature
“Three days after I arrived”, Naomi Alderman recalls, “was the start of the Jewish festival of Succot.” This complicated her start to term, as she wasn’t allowed to do any work other than reading for three days. Combined with the lack of kosher food provided by her college, it all proved s
Of minds and choices
“I threaded my way through a crowd dotted with people who had clearly consumed psychedelics or stimulants immediately prior to the meeting.”
A day with DIVA Magazine
The usual suspects end up being the last recipients of progress: women, people of colour and those whose sexual orientation doesn’t fit a neat label. In this context, DIVA magazine is something of a silver lining.
From the archives: Dinner with Lucien Freud, 1983
Once Lucian Freud was asked to paint the portrait of a former Principal of Jesus College. “A charming physics don asked me if I would do it. I rather liked the idea of being up there amongst a lovely collection of Elizabethan works, but the problem was that I find it difficult to paint people [&he
Hymn to Intellectual Duty
The phrase ‘political prisoner’ is charged with both power and notoriety, concepts I had never associated with my 75 year old grandfather. To me, he has always been my baba, a former English teacher whose days are spent writing poetry and tending to his garden. I’d heard my parents talk about
‘Invisible to Mortal Sight’: Sargy Mann and the Art of Darkness
Her eyes meet yours with the guarded yet knowing gaze of age, staring out from within a fleshed but still skull-like head. She sits upright in a severe wooden armchair her left hand crooked on the rest and her right clutching a bundle of white rags. Clothed in dull browns and blacks that seem both [