Arts
Postcard from Lille, Part 29
Tangled up in the Vizconce massacre investigation and having just escaped from a Filipino jail, I’m now on the run and heading south to lie low long enough to be forgotten about. I have a letter of [more…]
Culture
Arts
Postcard from Lille, Part 28
At 5227 San Augustin Street, Makati City, after dark, there were no yellow ribbons for me nor a line of concerned people praying and clutching the rosary. A maid answers the door and looks surprised rather than [more…]
Arts
Meet Markos Vamvakaris (“Mark Cotton”) – Patriarch of Rebetiko
Some things are not quite what they seem: hardly an earth-shattering perception, but you have to start somewhere. I imagine that a fair number of GPers have spent a holiday in Greece. I dare say [more…]
20th Century
Bollocks to Krauts! Malka and Shlomo in the Secret Shtetl
“Malka and Shlomo in the Secret Shtetl” was inspired by a story which circulated within dissidents circles when I was a student in Moscow in the early 1980s: several villages in Siberia were so remote [more…]
Arts
Postcard from Lille, Part 27
If we’re ever in the same place at the same time, I’m the quiet one standing in the corner, keeping his own council, people-watching, shy (or even just plain rude). I might be in my own little [more…]
20th Century
Bax of Delights
There have been quite a few occasions when one wished one was a fly on the wall to listen in on a conversation. The private discussion between Sir Arnold Bax, Master of the King’s Musick, [more…]
Arts
Postcard from Lille, Part 26
‘I hope that you’ve all studied logical positivism?’ Incarcerated in Paranaque Municipal Jail, part of Metro Manila’s southern urban sprawl, it is boily hot and dark. Thousands of pairs of pin prick brown eyes look at me [more…]
Arts
Standards, Flags and Colours
In an attempt to win the driest, dullest posted article I present this. The document’s first couple of lines regarding a diversity and inclusion impact assessment may take readers aback. We all know that Royal [more…]
Arts
The Going Postal Camper Van
One of my heroes, Judas Was Paid, suggested I make a camper van. So, obedient old girl that I am, I made a camper van. But because, like most on here, I am nasty, twisted [more…]