Retracing long worn away steps without going anywhere — of course the advantage of travel literature in many ways is the joy of being able to visit places in the comfort of an armchair, but then there’s also trying to find spots that just[…]

Derrida obituary in The Guardian: here. Does a terrific job of a summarising work and life concisely and clearly. The leader here is certainly more appropriate than the Times one mentioned below, and not just because I agree with it to a far greater […]

Jacques Derrida 1930-2004
Expect to see more of kind of obscene gloating in the next few days. There are few scholars whose death could provoke such unseemly and offensive glee among the staff of what used to claim to be a paper of record. The violen[…]

HISTORY OF HISTORY-of-ART BODYSHOCKS (dept of genealogy) :
ok learning that robert quine wz the nephew of willard van orman quine is one thing, but being told (by Tom) that Buster (Buster comic fame) is the son of andy capp has turned my entire unde[…]

I like Brutalist architecture. I like the colour of rained-on concrete and I love big, blocky geometricality. I’m always attracted to creative movements which name themselves by reclaiming the insults which defined them in the first place. Am I[…]

proof that bicycle-wielding action painter j.pollock = big yank puff
asger jorn and pals (and dog) make a clay mural[…]

The other day I went to a gallery and it was the National Gallery and it had pictures and they were dead good and there was a horsey.[…]

Things In The Top 25 Non Fiction Books Which Are Fiction No Matter How Many Copies They Sell
7. Julia Donaldson – The Gruffalo’s Child
12. The Beano Annual*
18. Rowling – Harry Potter And The Order Of The Phoenix
21. Derek Acorah &#[…]

Fine and Dandy
The Today programme, yesterday. John Humphries intriduces a story about the new, glossy, relaunched Dandy.
He begins by fulminating that it’s on glossy paper, has new stories, and Desperate Dan has got rid of his gun. Isn’t[…]

Oh no not again: people can grumble all they like about cinema adaptations of books but they are entirely harmless compared to the time-wasting chasm of ineptitude that is comics adapted from books or plays. I remember the ‘good old days’[…]