Archive for April 2009
One Man Wise Enough to Gouerne All Us
Posted by: danhartland on: April 30, 2009
Recently on Newsnight Review, Ian Hislop and Michael Portillo clashed over the British tendency towards belittling politicians (alas the clip online ends before they get there): Americans, Portillo argued, were happier to see their representatives as at the very least human beings trying to do their best, whilst the Brits, conveniently personified by Hislop, were [...]
“It’s Every Man’s Business to See Justice Done.”
Posted by: danhartland on: April 29, 2009
- In: Books | sherlock holmes
- 1 Comment
One summer night, a few months after my marriage, I was seated by my own hearth smoking a last pipe and nodding over a novel, for my day’s work had been an exhausting one. The Crooked Man is another of those Holmes stories which finds its answer in an exotic clime. In this case, the [...]
Text Maniacs
Posted by: danhartland on: April 28, 2009
- In: Politics
- 7 Comments
Every now and then you’re reminded forcibly how narrowly you can experience the world. Often it’s not someone else’s comparatively expansive perspective that does it, either. No, sometimes it’s reminding yourself how many people are still total shits. This is the danger of knowing lots of nice, reasonable people and reading stuff written by nice, [...]
Like The Hole Torn Right Through the Roof
Posted by: danhartland on: April 28, 2009
- In: albums | music
- Leave a Comment
I’ve had a couple of listens to Together Through Life, but it’s too early to come up with anything but a snap judgement. (My instinct is, though, that the four star reviews are misplaced.) Fortunately, it’s been a bumper week or so for new music, with both Camera Obscura and King Creosote releasing new records. [...]
Passing The Parcel
Posted by: thestoryandthetruth on: April 27, 2009
- In: education | film | History
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We might be the last people in this hemisphere to see a version of Alan Bennett’s play, The History Boys. Not only did it prove so popular that theatrical productions of it abounded; the play was filmed in 2006. It was this which we sat down to watch at the weekend. Not having seen the [...]
Blair: “The Context Is Much Tougher…”
Posted by: danhartland on: April 25, 2009
While everyone else was talking about the death of New Labour, Tony Blair went on a bit of a greatest hits tour last week. Back in 1999, Blair spoke before the Chicago Council on Global Affairs about internationalism and interventionism, presaging his later position on Afghanistan and Iraq with a plea for involvement in Kosovo. [...]
The Politics of Ismail Kadare’s ‘The Siege’
Posted by: danhartland on: April 24, 2009
- In: Books
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I’ve been reading Ismail Kadare’s The Siege. I always preface any remarks about a translated novel with the admission that I feel uncomfortable making sweeping claims about prose style when I cannot read the author’s original work; in the case of Kadare, almost all of his work – including this one – is available in [...]
“I Am Liable To These Sudden Nervous Attacks”
Posted by: danhartland on: April 23, 2009
It was some time before the health of my friend, Mr. Sherlock Holmes, recovered from the strain caused by his immense exertions in the spring of ’87. The Reigate Squires takes place during what Watson had hoped to be a quiet country holiday but which “took a turn which neither of us could have anticipated.” [...]
“Then I Got Dark Again”
Posted by: danhartland on: April 21, 2009
Bill Callahan used to be known as Smog, but he has just released a second album under his own name. One might think of Conor Oberst no longer recording as Brighteyes to little appreciable difference, but Callahan records, whilst sharing the approach of Smog, also add new layers. Of course, Callahan has always been a [...]
Define:Labour
Posted by: danhartland on: April 18, 2009
Guido Fawkes responds strongly to something of a negative profile of him in the Telegraph this morning. (Though he can’t say all that negativity is untrue, merely that it is, er, unbalanced.) He has developed an intensifying rivalry with the paper over the last week, in which the Torygraph has taken a curiously defensive line [...]
71 is the number of an apartment we return to regularly in Whinfell Forest, Cumbria. We like it there.
‘We’ are Anna French and Dan Hartland. The Story and the Truth is a sort of inadequate catch-all term for what goes on here: we tend to talk about novels, history, food and fashion, politics and music, but there may also be photographs of soft toys and musicians. Stick around and see.
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Words We Like
The Weird, ed. Ann and Jeff VanderMeer
An astounding work of collecting-as-art, this compendium of 800,000 weird words is easily one of the most consistent genre anthologies I have read. Heterodox yet focused, it is fated to be the canonical text of weird fiction studies for some time to come - and deservedly so. The first-rank stories here - and there are many, not a few - are not excellent weird fiction. They are simply some of the best 20th century writing available in any mode. Not without its faults - but that is, ahem, the nature of the beast. Essential.
Sounds We Like
Sonik Kicks, by Paul Weller
I haven't paid much attention to Weller - an artist who hangs heavy in my musical tutelage - since 2000's Heliocentric, an album of diverse interests which felt like a shot of crisp elegance in that year of Steps and 'N Sync. The records that followed it - particularly Illumination - were enough, however, to make those achievements a distant memory. There have been rumblings of a renaissance - 22 Dreams got great reviews - but only the sounds of Sonik Kicks have brought me back. Energetic, fierce and, best of all, creative, this sounds like a record from a much younger man. Weller has a lesson or two in him yet.
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