In many ways Brock Turner’s father seems like a real Brock Turner: ignorant and entitled, grossly misogynist, eager to condone sexual assault. The brazen arrogance and extraordinary lack of compassion he showed when he described the sexual assault of an unconscious woman as no more than ’20 minutes of action’, in a letter sent to Santa Clara County Superior Court which…
where we live the flowers of the clocks catch fire and the plumes encircle the brightness in the distant sulphur morning the cows lick the salt lilies my son my son let us always scuff along through the colour of the world that looks bluer than the metro and astronomy we are too skinny we have no mouth our legs…
Making a triumphant return to the MTV Video Music Awards nine years after her last less-than-stellar performance, Britney Spears took the occasion to pay homage to one of her biggest idols. And while in previous times she might have cited Madonna, Janet Jackson, and Whitney Houston, this year she shone the spotlight instead on Sacha Baron Cohen, or more specifically his…
4.5
Everyone learns their lesson the hard way in Million Dollar Baby. Given that his former charge Eddie ‘Scrap-Iron’ Dupris (Morgan Freeman) was blinded in one eye in his 109th and final fight, Frankie Dunn (Clint Eastwood) is understandably reluctant to lead another boxer to a title shot. When ‘Big’ Willie Little (Mike Colter) tires of waiting and leaves Frankie for…
Aries (20 March – 19 April) Walking clockwise around the garden on your lunch break will do untold wonders for your health. You won’t have to ask: somehow you’ll know which garden. * * * Taurus (19 April – 20 May) A change of routine can be a good thing, but as you and your family embark on that unexpected…
One time there was a picket fence with space to gaze from hence to thence. An architect who saw this sight approached it suddenly one night, removed the spaces from the fence, and built of them a residence. The picket fence stood there dumbfounded with pickets wholly unsurrounded, a view so loathsome and obscene, the Senate had to intervene. The…
We’ve all been there, one dreary and distant summer holiday or half-term, a tub of acrylic paint in one hand, and in the other a potato oozing with starch. Creating geometric shapes – and the occasional smiley face, flower petal, or simple heart – by slicing potatoes into stencils and stamps is a popular childhood pastime, an evocative relic of our scarcely forgotten youth. In a…
One inherited the real estate empire built up by his father, Fred Trump, who by the 1970s was one of the richest people in America with a fortune of around $200 million. Fred made his way by profiteering from public contracts, and according to folk singer Woody Guthrie and the US Department of Justice Civil Rights Division, he was a…
Viewing the late 1920s in retrospect, it seems like Louise Brooks had Hollywood at her feet. In 1925 a featured role in the Ziegfeld Follies brought her to the attention of Paramount, and she signed a five-year contract with the studio, quickly winning recognition for her vibrant performances and distinctive look. In 1926 she had a small but memorable role in…
Taking the stage four times in Madison Square Garden, enthralling the audience as she performed medleys of thirteen of her biggest hits, on the night that she received the Michael Jackson Video Vanguard Award for her body of work you might have presumed that the 2016 MTV Video Music Awards belonged to Rihanna. But inevitably you’d have been sorely mistaken, because Beyoncé was…
