Sinéad Gleeson’s blog
Apart from the costumes (which won an Oscar on Sunday night for Milena Canonero), there is very little to recommend Sophia Coppola’s overblown, dull biopic Marie Antoinette. We had to suffer the non-acting talent that is Kirsten Dunst, but there was one ray of light in the film: an updated version of ‘Hong Kong Garden’ […]
If you’ve nowt to do this evening and are getting carried away by awards fever, tune in to Tom Dunne’s show on Today FM from 7pm tonight to hear live coverage of The Choice Music Prize from Vicar Street. The gig itself is completely sold out, but through the power of the wireless you can […]
Last week, upon discovering that legendary comic 2000AD would be turning 30 tomorrow, I thought the occasion should be marked. Now, apart from the fact that I’ve been reading a lot of graphic novels lately and went to see Ghostrider this morning (Nicolas Cage with scary hair plugs), my knowledge of comics is very basic. […]
Above is one of the unique jazzy detours of turnabilist/scratch DJs, Kid Koala, and recently I rediscovered his 2000 Ninja Tune album Carpel Tunnel Syndrome* lurking on my heaving shelves of vinyl. Born Eric San, Kid Koala has been been cutting and splicing tunes for over a decade. He tends to use samples from TV, […]
Fair play to RTE’s Seoige & O’Shea for allowing three bloggers (myself, Simon and Una to talk about blogging and next week’s Irish Blog Awards. Red Mum obligingly cogged the footage off the telly and put it on youtube, which you can see here: That clip is about half the interview, but if you’re near […]
Seeing as George Bernard Shaw in was mentioned in the comments of today’s earlier post above, and we were talking about banned books yesterday, I just read this great quote from the man himself in the UK Indo today:
“Assassination is the ultimate form of censorship”.
The full article is well worth a read and linked to […]
This post is for Omani (and his daughter Grace), who in the comments of this post brought up the mysterious absence of women writers from a very famous Irish poster. The version reproduced here is a slightly redesigned one, but it’s essentially the same as the one that used to hang in my English classroom. […]
Last night, after switching over from the dire Man United V Lille match to watch Life on Mars, my brother, who was at the game in France, sent me update texts. Not about the travesty of non-action on the pitch or longed-for goalflashes, but about the chaos that went on in the ground. This […]
Of course you do. So do I. Even though I’m literally tripping over books and could make stepladders out of the sheer numbers piled on my floor to reach stuff that a person of my challenged height can’t get to. But I’m very taken with the UK Independent’s latest giveaway idea. Yep, it’s books, but […]
Am delighted to see that Gavin Bryars is back, and this weekend sees the premiere of Nothing Like the Sun, an attempt by various musicians to rework and reinterprete Shakespeare’s sonnets. Taking place at The Courtyard Theatre in Stratford Upon Avon, it will be curated by Bryars, and the second half of the performance will […]
…would have been 40 today if he’d lived. The Guardian and UK Independent look at his life and influence.
There’s a much-held belief that Literary Criticism is on the wane, not what it used to be and a tad unfashionable. Reading Al Alvarez’ fascinating collection of esssays in his new book Risky Business: People, Pastimes, Poker and Books might help to change that view. London-born Alvarez has been writing critically for over 50 years […]