With the world's eyes on the Ukraine, Mahlerman considers the musical history of that troubled region... Unlike the 85% of Americans that apparently cannot locate Ukraine on the map, I know where it is and what it means to me, and it is rather more than 'a country in South Eastern ... Read More...
Month: May 2014
Yang Kyoungjong surrendering to US troops Pictured above at the moment of his capture is the subject of this week's unusual Wikipedia article. No wonder he looks a bit glum... Yang Kyoungjong (c. 1920 – April 7, 1992) was a Korean soldier who fought in the Imperial Japanese ... Read More...
Prepare to weep for your lost youth and joy... First Heart-Rending Elegy In Loopy Copse, when I was young, all golden were the shrubs and trees. All golden I remember them, and Bonkers Maisie from the farm. Maisie was unkempt and mad, just like her brother and her dad. Her sister left them long ago. ... Read More...
We are lucky today to feature the one and only Mister Slang - Lexicographer Jonathon Green, late of this parish, who has been so busy since we last saw him that he has managed to produce not one but two new books on his life's work. Here for your reading pleasure is ... Read More...
The future seems to have converged on Aldous Huxley's once brave predictions... Rooting around for a new audio book recently to listen to on my daily commute – as there are only so many Bryant and May novels I can fill my days with - I decided to give Aldous Huxley’s ... Read More...
Sufferers from Foreign Accent Syndrome suddenly find themselves speaking with an alien accent. Douglas explains how you can get a piece of that action... Every now and then news reaches us of a case of so-called Foreign Accent Syndrome. In 2011, for example, a middle-aged woman made a visit to her ... Read More...
Brit's Dabbler Diary will return next week. In the meantime, here's a piece discovered deep within the archives about a very unusual cartoonist... I have in my possession a little book, subtly entitled: FOUR CONFUSING TALES each illustrated by six UP-TURNABLE PICTURES from the incredible TOPSY-TURVY world of GUSTAVE VERBEEK. It has to be ... Read More...
Do you hear the Spring sound of mowers humming? Stephen considers the poetic qualities of grass... I am easy to please. All seems right with the world when, on a sunny spring day, I can hear the hum of lawnmowers from various points in the distance, and the scent of freshly-cut ... Read More...
Freakish monkey business on today's visit to the stranger side of Wikipedia - is this perhaps how Wayne Rooney was created? The Humanzee (also known as the Chuman or Manpanzee) is a hypothetical chimpanzee/human hybrid. Chimpanzees and humans are closely related (sharing 95% of their DNA sequence and 99% of coding ... Read More...
Frank reveals the woman behind Duchamp's famous 'readymade'... That ludicrous mountebank Damien Hirst has delivered a statement. Of Henry Moore, he says: “His subjects are eternal, which is true of all the greatest art.” I suppose we ought to thank Mr Hirst for explaining that to us, although I am not ... Read More...
