I have two definitions of what history is, which I wrote years ago and have repeated several times thereafter – and here they are again: 1. History is what was known once but has been forgotten 2. History is the present’s interpretation of the past It’s worth considering these when contemplating the subject of women’sRead More
Down House, Charles Darwin’s home for forty years, lies in the village of Downe, south of Orpington in what is technically the London Borough of Bromley, but is a part of Kent really. Darwin purchased the house in 1842 and remained there until his death in 1882. It is a functional rather than a beautifulRead More
The first X-rated film I saw was The Long Good Friday. It was 1981, I was nineteen, and a little apprehensive about the promised violence that only someone of the age I had now attained was permitted to see. The opening scenes of the film were confusing. Money was being changed hands, clearly illicitly. TheRead More
Promotional video for the Frank Auerbach exhibition An exhibition is currently running at the Hazlitt Holland-Hibbert gallery in London: Frank Auerbach: Twenty Self-Portraits. It brings together recent self-portraits – nine paintings and eleven drawings – by the ninety-two-year-old German-British painter. Although renowned for his searching portraits of others, he has seldom drawn or painted himself.Read More
It begins with a book, a map, then a man swimming to the shore of island. It is the most economical of openings to a film. The book tells us that this is a story of note, one that should automatically command our respect. The map tells us that what we are to witness isRead More
At the top of Rochester High Street, where the bridge crosses over the Medway, there is a pub with a long history: the Crown. The present building, which dates from the late eighteenth century, is adjacent to where the original building (built early fourteenth century, now lost) once stood, most notably providing accommodation for passingRead More
There are those touchstone films that you have to see every now and again. Not obsessively, but occasionally – the old friend met once every few years, yet without whom you would not know where you are. You know every scene, every word is familiar to you, but you must see it again. It isRead More
The poet was a scientist The scientist was a poet The one always saw the world with the eyes of the other ‘In the microscope’, for instance Here too are cemeteries, fame and snow. And I hear murmuring, the revolt of immense estates. It is the view of one who understood the puzzle and theRead More
Ten and a bit years ago I contributed for the first time to the venerable Sight and Sound once-every-ten-years poll of the greatest films. The poll has been running since 1952. The top choice of the sixty-three critics who contributed was Ladri di biciclette, or Bicycle Thieves (Italy 1948). From 1962 to 2002 the poll-topperRead More
Lately I have been seeing something of English Civil War re-enactments. I have absolutely no interest in dressing up in seventeenth-century clothes, bearing a musket, or shouting my allegiance to Charles or Cromwell, but it is fascinating to see those who do. Most recently I witnessed members of the English Civil War Society (ECWS) inRead More