8
‘Retour’ by audace, a jazzy Tokyo-based two-piece featuring Shiko Ito on accordion and Manabu Kitada on clarinet, was issued as part of the duo’s debut album all the way back in 2007 – a time when a young Felix Kjellberg, then still at high school, was nary a twinkle in YouTube’s barely opened eye. In that year, without a distributor…
Who knew that amid all the agonising over Brexit, the loudest grumbles of all would come by way of our tummies? Truly it seems that the way to every British person’s heart is through their stomach. For whichever side of the table you’ve opted to dine at – and even if you’ve mostly contented yourself at home with a few…
In some of the opening scenes of the second series of the acclaimed nature documentary Planet Earth, David Attenborough unfolds fondly upon the relatively quick reaction of an island-dwelling pygmy three-toed sloth. Our humble sloth is hearing from someplace in the distance the enticing call of a prospective mate. Separated by deep water, the red-blooded sloth drops from his branch and…
Ever since the people of Britain voted broadly in favour of some form of Brexit, agitated parties on both sides of the debate have weaponised everything which falls under the swiftly setting sun, from currency and stock market rates and business arrangements, to the size and availability of our favourite supermarket foods. In short, every shift has become a consequence of…
It is hardly surprising within the closed world of country music to come across fathers infantilising their young. Daughters typically bear the brunt of such ostentatious displays of masculinity, with songs like ‘Daddy’s Girl’ by Red Sovine serving as staples of country radio in the hard trucking, heavy drinking, frequently philandering, altogether dirty South. But why do the women themselves…
A cool small evening shrunk to a dog bark and the clank of a bucket – And you listening. A spider’s web, tense for the dew’s touch. A pail lifted, still and brimming – mirror To tempt a first star to a tremor. Cows are going home in the lane there, looping the hedges with their warm wreaths of breath…
What counsel has the hooded moon Put in thy heart, my shyly sweet, Of Love in ancient plenilune, Glory and stars beneath his feet — A sage that is but kith and kin With the comedian Capuchin? Believe me rather that am wise In disregard of the divine, A glory kindles in those eyes, Trembles to starlight. Mine, O mine!…
Art thou pale for weariness Of climbing heaven, and gazing on the earth, Wandering companionless Among the stars that have a different birth, — And ever changing, like a joyless eye That finds no object worth its constancy? Published 1824.
Fittingly at a time when the world is run amok by Hollywood stars in superhero movies, this week a celestial body from someplace else in our universe forced its way into the limelight – or should that be low light or dim light, or sky’s night, or Earth’s satellite? Because the phenomenon which we are talking about here is the Moon,…
It wasn’t until the early hours of Sunday morning, on the occassion of the first UFC event in the city of New York, at the climax of MMA’s grand entrance to the mecca that is Madison Square Garden, that Conor McGregor scored his own piece of history, becoming the only dual-weight title holder at the top level of the sport. Following his swift…
