Thursday, February 26, 2015
Bright Summer - Dark Autumn by Robert Barltrop (Waltham Forest Libraries and Arts Department 1986)
Monday, January 14, 2013
The Train by Georges Simenon (Melville House 1958)
Saturday, September 15, 2012
Charade by John Mortimer (Viking Penguin 1947)
Saturday, September 08, 2012
Put Out More Flags by Evelyn Waugh (Penguin Modern Classics 1942)
Tuesday, November 29, 2011
Tuesday, May 03, 2011
City of Thieves by David Benioff (Plume Book 2008)
"One of the most beautiful passages in literature, you know. His professor had been a famous writer back in his day, but now he's completely forgotten. Radchenko feels ashamed for the old man. He watches him through his bedroom window - Radchenko never leaves his apartment; remember, he hasn't left in seven years - he watches the professor walk out of sight, kicking at the pigeons and cursing them." Kolya cleared his throat and switched to his declamatory tone. "Talent must be a fanatical mistress. She's beautiful; when you're with her, people watch you, they notice. But she bangs on your door at odd hours, and she disappears for long stretches, and she has no patience for the rest of your existence: your wife, your children, your friends. She is the most thrilling evening of your week, but some day she will leave you for good. One night, after she's been gone for years, you will see her on the arm of a younger man, and she will pretend not to recognize you."
Kolya's apparent immunity to exhaustion aggravated and amazed me. I could keep moving only by sighting a distant tree and promising myself that I would not quit before I reached it - and when we got to that tree, I would find another and swear this was the last one. But Kolya seemed capable of traipsing through the woods, orating with a stage whisper, for hours at a time.
Monday, November 15, 2010
Thursday, August 12, 2010
Closely Observed Trains by Bohumil Hrabal (Abacus 1965)
My grandfather again, not to fall too far short of the standard set by Great-grandfather Luke, was a hypnotist who did his act in small circuses, and the whole town saw in his hypnotism nothing more nor less than an ambitious bid to stroll his way through life as idly as possible. But when the Germans crossed our frontier in March to occupy the whole country, and were advancing in the direction of Prague, our grandfather was the only one who went out to meet them, nobody else but our grandfather, and he set out to defy those Germans by means of his hypnotic powers, to hold back the advancing tanks by the force of suggestion. He went striding along the highroad with his eyes fixed on the leading tank, the spearhead of that entire motorized army. In this tank, waist-deep in the cabin, stood an officer of the Reich, with a black beret with the death's-head badge and the crossed bones on his head, and my grandfather kept on going steadily forward, straight towards this tank, with his hands stretched out, and his eyes spraying towards the Germans the thought: 'Turn round, and go back!'
And really, that first tank halted. The whole army stood still. Grandfather touched the leading tank with his outstretched fingers, and kept pouring out towards it the same suggestion: 'Turn round and go back, turn round and . . .' And then the lieutenant gave a signal with his pennant, and the tank changed its mind and moved forward, but Grandfather never budged, and the tank ran over him and crushed his head, and after that there was nothing in the way of the German army.
Afterwards Dad went out to look for Grandfather's head. That leading tank was standing motionless outside Prague, waiting for a crane to come and release it, because Grandfather's head was mashed between the tracks. And the tracks being turned just the way they were, Dad begged to be allowed to free Grandfather's head and bury it with his body, as was only right for a Christian.
Wednesday, June 02, 2010
Sunday, February 21, 2010
Saturday, February 06, 2010
Friday, January 01, 2010
Blood and sand
Absolutely amazing old clip from Ukraine's Got Talent. (I thought I'd be the 10,923,845 viewer of the clip on YouTube before mentioning it on the blog.)
'Sand artist', Kseniya Simonova, tells the story of 'The Great Patriotic War with 'sand animation'. Watch it all the way through. It's worth repeated viewing.
Tony Hart was unavailable for comment but James Donaghy picked up on the performance four months ago on the Guardian website.
Talent triumphed as Kseniya won Ukraine's Got Talent (there's no truth in the rumour that Olg Vernik came third in the final with his simultaneous impersonation of 13 Workers' Internationals), and she has no plans to tour with Susan Boyle but she is chewing over the offer of designing the next Chameleons album cover . . . if they ever reform . . . and if the tittle tattle I make up on this blog ever comes true.