“While the place I’ve arrived at isn’t exactly everyone’s idea of heavenly, I could swear sometimes, if I’m quiet enough, I can hear the angels sing. Either that or I fucked up my medication”. Taken from her one woman show Wishful Drinking, this perfectly sums up the late, great Carrie Fisher and her attitudes towards […]
Obituary
An Ode to Leonard Cohen
The first time I heard Leonard Cohen’s music was in Godalming high-street at the turn of the new millennium. A white-haired busker in a Mediterranean shirt and John Lennon glasses was singing “Hey, That’s No Way To Say Goodbye” to waves of Saturday morning shoppers, who watched their own shoes as they passed by his […]
Obituary: In Memory of Shimon Peres
”When you have two alternatives, the first thing you have to do is to look for the third that you didn’t think about, that doesn’t exist.” – Shimon Peres If you follow the news you are more likely than not to have heard of the recent death of Shimon Peres, who died from a fatal […]
Obituary: Elie Wiesel
For the survivor who chooses to testify, it is clear: his duty is to bear witness for the dead and for the living. To forget would be not only dangerous but offensive; to forget the dead would be akin to killing them a second time. The above words, from Elie Wiesel’s autobiographical work Night, perfectly […]
Through all tributes, Brendan Cox’s words ring most true
Just moments after our exit from the European Union, one may expect both endless discussion on the capricious nature of the financial markets, and a growing sense of foreboding about where Britain now stands on the international stage. This piece will not indulge this, but instead cast our minds to the Thursday before last when the […]
Obituary: Jacques Rivette
Legendary French director Jacques Rivette has died aged 87. Best known for his involvement with the French New Wave, Rivette had a long career making his first feature, Paris nous appartient, in 1961 and releasing his last film, 36 vues du pic Saint-Loup or Around a Small Mountain, in 2009. Born in Rouen in 1928, […]
Alan Rickman: A life on film
Alan Rickman has sadly died. In the week that we also lost Bowie, it is a massive shock to British culture and although we mythologise them in our minds as eternal superhumans, it is a sorrowful reminder that our icons cannot live forever. Rickman has been a national emblem for British stage and screen for […]
In retrospect: David Bowie’s ★
When Bowie covered Ronnie Spector’s ‘Try Some, Buy Some’ on 2003’s Reality, he simultaneously traversed his own mythology and the Wall of Sound fabled by Ronnie’s late husband. His fixation with texturing often incredibly dense and provocative instrumentation continued over a ten year synapse to The Next Day, to be been lucidly resurrected again in […]
Remembering Lemmy Kilmister
Ian Fraser “Lemmy” Kilmister in his 70 years revolutionised the music industry and shaped generations. A life not so much troubled, but demarcated by addiction, even down to his iconic nickname which came from him asking friends to “lend me a quid for the slots”, his passing was considered somewhat impossible. Dave Grohl in Lemmy’s […]
Denis Healey: The former ‘Labour Giant’
Denis Healey, who has just passed at the phenomenal age of 98, was famously known as an iconic Labour politician: particularly famous for his outspoken manner and purist outlook. A ‘proper education’ at Bradford Grammar School alongside his own charismatic determination resulted in Denis receiving an Oxford scholarship to study Classics, although he remained highly […]