Rita Byrne Tull continues her series of Dabbler letters from America with a look at the thorny issue of Church and State... I could not have chosen a more eventful time for my first visit to America than the summer of 1969. Americans were still reeling from the assassination of Robert ... Read More...
Politics
I don't know how he did it, but a few weeks ago Evan Davis managed to smuggle a quite shocking heresy past the the BBC editors. In an episode of Made in Britain he argued, gently but persuasively, that the primary cause of the collapse of heavy British industry in late ... Read More...
There's been a slew of 'what does this say about Britain?' articles in the wake of the News of the World scandal (the answer can be summarised as 'nothing good', by the way). This is from The New York Times and is by an expat journo coming home. He concludes: ...a man ... Read More...
In the latest post in our series, Daniel Kalder examines the literary efforts of defunct dictator, Saddam Hussein. It proves an unexpected opportunity to explore the intertextuality of man-bear sex. Saddam Hussein's Zabiba and the King was the first book in my library of dictator literature. I got it for Christmas 2004 – after ... Read More...
The Dabbler reviews the new three-part documentary All Watched Over By Machines of Loving Grace (BBC2, 9pm Mondays). First, we really should get one thing straight: our Western economies are being held hostage by a financial oligarchy. If you don't believe me, read this and this (to take two separate and convincing ... Read More...
Have we hit some sort of bottom in our series? Judge for yourself - delivered in prose of awesome sterility, the North Korean despot's commitment to lies is unwavering. Onwards! I didn't want to read Kim Jong-il's Our Socialism Centered On the Masses Shall Not Perish. I was more interested in On Film. ... Read More...
In an occasional series Daniel Kalder examines the literary endeavours of the world's dictators. This week we hear about a dictator who was not only the world's most feared literary critic but also an unlikely poet of women's moles and 24-hour taverns. Perhaps the most famous literary critic of the 20th ... Read More...
In an occasional series Daniel Kalder examines the literary endeavours of the world's dictators. This week we learn of the dictator of a new and rather obscure nation who took a hands-on approach to Orwell's dictum that he who controls the past, controls the future. The collapse of the USSR brought ... Read More...
In an occasional series Daniel Kalder examines the literary endeavours of the world's dictators. This week we remember the lavishly browed and latterly decrepit Leonid Brezhnev, the author of the Soviet Private Ryan. Master of the USSR in his lifetime, Leonid Brezhnev (1906-1982) is best remembered today for his exceedingly hairy eyebrows ... Read More...
In an occasional series Daniel Kalder examines the literary endeavours of the world's dictators. This week we look back at Enver Hoxha and his turgid, book-length love letter to another old monster. Even by the standards of psychotic 20th-century communist dictators, Albania's Enver Hoxha (1908-1985) stands out as exceptional. Born in ... Read More...
