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Undestroyed Cork

Seventy years ago the British burnt down much of Cork city-centre.  Cash’s, Roches, the Munster Arcade and the City hall all went up in smoke.

Just before the anniversary in 1990 I met an old man who had seen the fire as a child.  He recalled mournfully, “They said if they’d burnt down both sides of Patrick Street they’d have made it a beautiful street when they rebuilt it after.”

Ekphrastic, eh?

American Modernism: Cultural Transactions conference, Oxford Brookes University, 22-23 September 2006

Nothing as stale as yesterday’s modernism.  The architecture says so and so does the politics, but how about the literature?

Such was the thought already in my head when this conference came up.  Time to fill in some of the blanks.  When I have read all of Willa Cather’s novels I will be perfect (I haven’t read any of them so far).

Westminster politics

The state opening of Parliament in London this week formally marks the start of what looks like being the crucial session in the life of Margaret Thatcher’s government.  All the signs are that she means to go on as before, with more privatisation and anti-union laws and uncompromising opposition to European union.

How to write a bestseller

Liz Fenwick interview by Roger Howe

Liz Fenwick has taken her husband’s name. In thirty years away from Massachusetts her accent has become a tad anglicised. When she mentions living in Moscow she pronounces the name ‘Mosco’ not the usual American pronunciation ‘Mossgow’.

The last days of the Beeb (Part 996)

Here we go again. 34 years after Michael Leapman published his book The Last Days of the Beeb, the Corporation’s staff are cakking their drawers over the - wholly implausible -threat that a Conservative government will abolish the license fee and they will be handed brooms with which to sweep the streets.