Tosa diary
THE TOSA DIARY was written in 935 by a famous Japanese scholar, poet and government administrator named Ki no Tsurayuki who lived in the reign of the Emperor Sujaku. Tsurayuki … Continue reading
The tent
When I was seven years old my parents bought me a tent. It was canvas and cone-shaped, on one side Indians in their warbonnets, their horses leaping, on the other … Continue reading
The life worth living: Ikiru
Akira Kurosawa made Rashomon in 1950, Ikiru in 1952 and The Seven Samurai in 1954. All these films have quite a complex structure. Yet Ikiru remains a very simple film, … Continue reading
The Margery Allingham question
Margery Allingham (1904-68) wrote stories about crime, which fact places her reputation somewhere in the wide ground between those of Fyodor Dostoevsky and Agatha Christie. But where precisely do we … Continue reading
Charulata
One of the interesting aspects of watching people’s reactions to one another when they meet is to see the extent these reactions are shaped by unacknowledged emotions: tiredness, prejudice, suppressed … Continue reading
Singers: the best sellers
Best selling recording artists – not the best, nor the most influential, nor the ones you like. Here are the best sellers, ever. The oldies had a smaller fan base, … Continue reading
Nina Simone Live at Montreux 1976
Last night I watched a DVD of a Nina Simone concert and I learned a thing or two about her I didn’t know before. I first discovered Nina Simone about … Continue reading
