Frozen In Time: A Classicist’s Portrait of Interwar Oxford
In one of the more blatantly cliché moments of my life, I watched the 1981 TV adaptation of Evelyn Waugh’s iconic Oxford interwar novel Brideshead Revisited. Notwithstanding the fact that Oxford only features in the first four episodes, it remains that for many of us, Brideshead played a part in
Tapioca Age
My grandfather was born in Malaya, a first-generation ethnic Chinese immigrant. Gong-gong’s temperament – quiet and minimalist – fits a man of his humble background, but his eagerness for adventure is exceptional. His extensive travels grant him a remarkably inquisitive palate that is rare amo
Weekly Round Up: Divestment, Hate Crime and Shaggy Memes
Jussie Smollett Hate Crime The brutal attack on actor Jussie Smollett has been widely condemned as a hate crime – the attackers chanted ‘Make America Great Again’ as they put a noose around his neck – yet predictably, many have sought to deny the importance of Smollett’s sexuality in this
Poetry
He’s just a boy, you tell yourself as you lean into the sad corners of his mouth, curling up, becoming small amongst those creases, tracing that auburn cowlick like a damp ring road, loneliness in the bedroom between you both, his jarring youth seemingly lost under the weight of the room’s waves
Shibuya hospital
August 31st 2017. Tokyo City, Shibuya hospital second floor There is an incredibly ominous feeling that accompanies knowing the exact place you are to die. I have been lying in the same spot for nearly a year now. Tubes snake their way under the blankets, latching onto me in humiliating place
Stories from Ukraine: Mezhyhirya Part I
Mezhyhirya is an estate on the outskirts of Kyiv where former Ukrainian President, Viktor Yanukovych, lived. When he fled Ukraine at the end of the Maidan protests in 2014, protestors entered his house and occupied it. This film is about the two people who are still there, now running the house as a
A Voice in the Storm
I’m on the black list over there, all of my books are banned… But I must always be faithful to the truth and to myself, no matter where I am. Stranded thousands of miles away from her family, her friends and her countrymen, the Syrian poet Maram al-Masri draws her strength from an unwavering
A Kiss for Syria: Tammam Azzam
In early 2011, Damascus was witnessing the rise of a revolution. The world was beginning to notice a rebirth occurring in the Syrian capital and from all corners of the globe, it was being watched with a wary eye. Art had seized the city and the force of this renaissance was reverberating far beyond
The Hitchens Cult
“And it was again the feeling that everything I loved was being attacked by everything I hated. So it was almost exhilarating.”
