Judges support planet, it says here. That’s worrying on two counts: first, it probably isn’t the best use of judges’ costly time and, second, it presumably means the elephants and turtles have wandered off.
Judges support planet, it says here. That’s worrying on two counts: first, it probably isn’t the best use of judges’ costly time and, second, it presumably means the elephants and turtles have wandered off.
Trump’s “plan” for tariffs on pharma will damage the business of big American companies who have subsidiaries in Ireland. What a brilliant idea! I wonder why it doesn’t seem to have occurred to any previous US administration?
More about Browning’s music poetry: “Abt Vogler” and “With Charles Avison”
Can’t help thinking an abstract would have been more useful, though I can see it might have been more difficult for the publishers.
The firm, the White House claimed, also acknowledged the wrongdoing of Pomerantz, the partner involved in the investigation into Trump’s hush-money payments to an adult film actor.
If that’s true, Pomerantz should sue them. Trump rescinds executive order affecting Paul, Weiss
Yet another actor who will find it a challenge to play a spymaster who looks like “a bullfrog in a sou’wester”: Macfadyen cast as Smiley 📺
This time, there are just two I’ve written about (39 and 31) and two I’ve read but haven’t written about (47 and 27): The 100 best Irish books of the 21st century: 50 to 26 📚
I’ve written about eight of these in my newsletter or (in the case of 96) on my personal site: 96, 92, 88, 86, 84, 75, 69, 58. I have copies of 99 and 77 but haven’t yet got around to reading them; and I’m just about to start reading 72: The 100 best Irish books of the 21st century: 100 to 51 📖
Reupping this post about why I don’t intend to stop reading Alice Munro. In fact, I haven’t read anything by her since I posted it last August so I’m putting this here mainly as a reminder to myself 📚
The law of war: Scott Turow, Ordinary Heroes and Testimony
I clicked on a headline which read McCall: ‘My brain operation supersized by gratitude’ and the story didn’t contain a single word about The Equalizer 📺. I feel cheated.
It’s hardly one of the best films to feature Hackman’s talents but I love Roger Donaldson’s No Way Out. Hackman plays a dovish Defense Secretary surrounded by hawks, and desperately trying to shift the blame for the killing of his lover to a Soviet sleeper in whose existence he doesn’t believe 🍿
“We create models of the future by recruiting our memories of the past,” wrote Eleanor Maguire, a neuroloscientist who died last month, aged 54. This seems to fit with my own impression that severely deficient autobiographical memory (SDAM) tends to make me “forget” the future.
I’m very relieved to read that Grace Slick hated (Jefferson) Starship’s 1980s hits. She went along with them because she thought she owed it to the band to have some chart success. Sober in the 80s 🎶
I’m reading Somerset Maugham’s Ashenden stories for the first time, having found them in the Oxfam shop last week. I’m amazed to learn that a tv adaptation of “The Traitor” by Troy Kennedy Martin was broadcast live in 1959. Apparently it wasn’t recorded ☹️ 📚
Predictably, the Common Reader’s attempt to agree on the twenty best English poets ends in tiers 📖
I love this new Summary feature, @manton. Thanks again.
Strange and cruel: Liz Nugent, Our Little Cruelties and Strange Sally Diamond
Ethan Iverson remembers Edge of Darkness (BBC, 1985), as should we all. (I have it on DVD, I’m glad to say) 📺
The latest post from Talk about books is about two novels by Irish women writers each of which features an intense friendships between a straight young woman and a slightly older gay man: Caroline O’Donoghue, The Rachel Incident, and Belinda McKeon, Tender 📖
Gay best friends: Caroline O’Donoghue, The Rachel Incident, and Belinda McKeon, Tender
Trump is good at distraction. His first term was all about the Supreme Court but many people ignored that. This time, it’s all about dismantling much of the Federal government and taking firm control of what’s left. Don’t be distracted by Greenland or Gaza. Concentrate on stopping Musk and DOGE.
There’s a lovely and (to me) informative post by Richard Williams about Laura Nyro on his The Blue Moment blog. I bought a vinyl copy of Gonna Take a Miracle at a vide-grenier maybe 15 years ago but I’ve never had a turntable to play it on 🎶
The current post from Talk about books is about Wendy Erskine’s first collection of short stories, Sweet Home (2018). It’s a couple of days late because my phone/internet connection went missing on Saturday afternoon, presumably because of the storm.
Against community: Wendy Erskine, Sweet Home