WRITER & HISTORIAN
Fans of that beloved British cultural institution Doctor Who are wont to talk about ‘their’ Doctor – that is, which iteration of the character was their entry-point to the franchise. The same might be said of fans of the no-less beloved songwriter, musician and comedian Neil Innes, who died in 2019 aged 75. In the... Continue Reading →
When his father, Rama II, died in 1824, the Siamese throne was taken by Mongkut’s older half-brother, who ruled as Rama III. Mongkut himself, aged 19, joined a monastery. This wasn’t unusual: three months as a monk was customary. Mongkut stayed for twenty-seven years, becoming known as Mongkut the Beggar. While in orders Mongkut spearheaded... Continue Reading →
His name was Hugh Donald McIntosh. An Australia-born entrepreneur he was a sometime fight promoter, theatrical producer and newspaper magnate. But by 1935 he was a recovering bankrupt. Previous attempts to resurrect his fortune included an angora rabbit farm and a cake shop. Now the man they called 'Huge Deal' McIntosh had a better idea.... Continue Reading →
On Barnes Common in West London, one midnight in the early days of 1955, a policeman approached four men sitting in a parked car. They were wearing velvet-collared jackets, stovepipe trousers, bootlace ties and crepe-soled shoes. ‘Teddy Boys’, he thought to himself. “Now then you lot,” he told them. “Get weaving before I pinch you.”... Continue Reading →
Gunfights and killings were news in Tombstone, Arizona but not headline news. One town paper had a regular column for such things titled ‘Death’s Doings’; the paper itself was mordantly named The Tombstone Epitaph. Not gallows humour exactly; trigger-finger humour, perhaps. Justice was rough to non-existent in the post-Civil War American south west. A bank... Continue Reading →
The idea came to him while shaving, he said. But it would be five years before American Civil War historian Philip van Doren Stern finished ‘The Greatest Gift’, his sweet, slight fantasy about a man contemplating suicide who get the chance to see what his small-town world would be like if he had never been... Continue Reading →
My parents are both now dead. My father died last, aged 90, in 2016. I had always associated my love of books with my mother’s influence. My father’s passing, however, made me realise ‒ too late ‒ that most of the books I turn to for comfort are those to which he introduced me. I... Continue Reading →
The numbers are extraordinary. Charles M Schulz, whose centenary falls on 26 November 2022, spent nearly fifty years of his life producing daily comic strips for Peanuts. Between 2 October 1950 and his death in February 2000, he drew a staggering 17,897 of them. He retired in December 1999 after a series of strokes and... Continue Reading →
As a child in the first years of the 20th century the great American film director Preston Sturges lived in a stylish apartment in Paris with his mother. An earphone hung beside the fireplace. He tried it; it seemed dead. Then one evening a family friend visited and, after dinner, sat in rapture, the earphone... Continue Reading →
Pop music doesn’t go in much for redemption as a rule, but Bunyan’s life is – characteristically – resolutely atypical. She seems like Hermione, Leontes’ wife in The Winters’ Tale, turned to stone for twenty years and then returned, movingly, to life. If you’re reading this, the chances are that you’re familiar with the outlines... Continue Reading →
It’s 1966 and 10-year-old Taeko has failed a maths test. Her mother, washing dishes in the kitchen, asks one of Taeko’s older sisters to help. The sister is horrified. “Is she alright in the head?” she asks. “Normally this is easy.” “But that child’s not normal,” her mother says, just as Taeko comes downstairs into... Continue Reading →
Where do you begin with something that has no beginning? The drone – music characterised by the stasis of a constant tone – is so old a concept it might not be an idea at all, but simply a human refraction of the sound of the universe. It is there in the Om chant of... Continue Reading →
Silent Night is one of the best-known songs in the world. It has been translated into over 200 languages and one version alone, Bing Crosby’s 1937 recording, sold over 30 million copies. But who knows anything of its authors? The lyrics to Silent Night were written by a somewhat loose-living Austrian priest named Joseph Mohr... Continue Reading →
Guys and Dolls, the musical loosely based on the Broadway stories of Damon Runyon, premiered on Broadway on November 24th 1950. It ran for 1,200 performances and has been frequently revived ever since. The film version, starring Frank Sinatra as Nathan Detroit and Marlon Brando as Sky Masterson, appeared in 1955. Even on the page,... Continue Reading →
When I was ten or so, I discovered my older brother’s copy of the NME Encyclopaedia of Rock, published in pre-punk 1976. Partly, I suppose, because I looked up to my brother so much, I read it religiously and swallowed its opinions wholesale. It wasn’t complimentary about Hawkwind: “One critic has described a typical Hawkwind... Continue Reading →
Whenever Dominic Cummings makes the headlines, commentators reach for the same word to describe his relationship with the prime minister: he is Boris Johnson’s Svengali, they write. But who was the original Svengali? Svengali is one of those rare literary creations so seemingly archetypal his name becomes short-hand for a kind of behaviour: in this... Continue Reading →
It’s 10 September 1942. The German army is at Stalingrad. Bomber Command is sending 479 planes to bomb Düsseldorf. And Winston Churchill is writing to Brendan Bracken, his Minister of Information, about a British film already in production. “[P]ropose to me the measures necessary to stop this foolish production before it gets any further,” he... Continue Reading →
It’s early 1974, British band Henry Cow is in the studio recording its second album, Unrest. One track features a 40-foot tape loop. Another is based on the Fibonacci sequence, a structural device borrowed from Karlheinz Stockhausen. The track is in 55/8 time. Henry Cow’s ethos is based on creating music it isn’t yet competent... Continue Reading →
It’s February 1954 and the Sunday Express has a scoop. Sir Laurence Olivier is learning to dance. More, he is planning to dance with a partner as part of a charity event at the Palladium, organised by Noel Coward. His dancing partner - and teacher - is Jack Buchanan, who the paper finds putting Olivier... Continue Reading →
Underground is the only silent film I’ve included on this list – and it is a corker. Largely shot on location, it is a treasure trove for anyone wanting to know what interwar London looked like – around Chelsea in particular. (Lots Road power station plays a major role – but you’ll have to watch... Continue Reading →
Mathew Lyons 