The Untenanted Room
I saw the forest and I saw the land; I looked for marvels, but I could not find them.…
The Day of the Dead
Raul awoke weeping. He put his hands to his face and found his cheeks wet with tears. Startled, he…
On Being Watched
Some years ago I was sitting in a restaurant about to eat a fine meal. I had that curious…
A Mystery Murder
I don’t know what got into me. Why did I accept the invitation? Mortally wounded amour-propre, most likely. After…
Italophilia
The Pursuit of Italy, David Gilmour, Allen Lane, 447pp, £25 (hardback) Italy is glory, art, music, poetry and a…
The Life of the City
Jerusalem: The Biography, Simon Sebag Montefiore, Weidenfeld & Nicolson, 696pp, £25 (hardback) The striking cover of this book reproduces…
Dead Parrot
The Vorticists: Manifesto for a Modern World Tate Britain, 14 June – 4 September 2011 A question that must…
The Growth of a Poet’s Mind
The Horseman’s Word, Roger Garfitt, Jonathan Cape, 378pp, £18.99 (hardback) Carl Sandburg once described the past as ‘a bucket…
A Tale of Two Fairs
Art Antiques London, Kensington Gardens, 9 – 15 June 2011 Summer Exhibition, Royal Academy of Arts, 7 June –…
Comic Modulations: Opera Holland Park 2011
L’Amico Fritz, Mascagni (21 June); Don Pasquale, Donizetti (22 June); The Marriage of Figaro, Mozart (4 July) and La…
The Renaissance as the Birth of the Multifarious Self
Who would not admire this chameleon? – Pico della Mirandola My conscience is captive to the Word of God…
Our Barmy Bread
The appeal of exotic cuisines and esoteric diets has done little to diminish bread’s status as the primary foodstuff of the Western world.
The Contentions of Friendship: William Hayley, William Blake and the Writing of ‘Jerusalem’
Thy friendship oft has made my heart to ache Pray be my enemy for friendship’s sake. In the literature…
On Writing
What are the perils and pleasures of writing? And in what way, and to what extent, does the writer’s self come into play?
What Happened to Generation X?
If 1991 marked the cultural awakening of a generation with energy not seen since the 1960s, we have to ask: what happened?
The Battle of Maiwand
You have got to know what you are looking for, but on the present-day US aerial photograph of the…
Remembering Patrick Leigh Fermor
The handsome and adventurous Patrick Leigh Fermor, who died in June 2011, was a distinguished travel writer and leading…
Over There: Tin Pan Alley Goes to War
In April 1917 President Wilson plunged America into the long-running and senseless Great War – as much for sound…
Garvagh Election
When the evenings clear everything looks dirty again like a dead blackbird picked clean ploughed into the lane the…
Time Travellers
The sick are well, dead smiling, old are young, framed photos bloom on windowsills and walls, I am a…
Severe Sweetness
(St. Theresa of Avila, Bernini) The woman is not perfected, she moans. She has travelled so far her body…