Think Inc. by Adam Diment (1971)

I squeezed the trigger and there was a derisive click as the firing pin fell on nothing. The fucking gun wasn’t even loaded. (p.29) And so we bid a sad farewell to the stoned and sex-mad ‘spy’, Philip McAlpine, in this, the fourth and final novel by young Adam Diment, all public school and swinging London, who […]

The Bang Bang Birds by Adam Diment (1968)

‘McAlpine,’ he grunted, ‘ why do you wear such godawful clothes. You look like a pacifist faggot beatnik hippie.’ (p.42) The Bang Bang Birds – Great title, a really brilliant title. The setting This is Adam Diment’s third novel about his twenty-something hash-happy, dolly bird-hunting ‘spy’, Philip McAlpine, and finds our layabout spook lounging in […]

The Great Spy Race by Adam Diment (1968)

It felt good to be alive – take a memo McAlpine – make sure you stay that way. (p.78) The main attraction of being a layabout is watching the rest of the world rushed off its aching feet. (p.83) This is Diment’s second novel featuring Philip McAlpine – a kind of lazy, dirty, dope-smoking twenty-something […]

The Dolly Dolly Spy by Adam Diment (1967)

‘I think the sexy spy’s going out of vogue, don’t you, Bill, darling?’ Brentridge laughed a bit. ‘Yes, worse luck. It’s all computers these days.’ (p.167) Adam Diment The mysterious Adam Diment was 23-years-old when this, his first novel, was published. It shot him to fame, he appeared in all the right Sunday supplements, and […]

China’s Hidden Century @ the British Museum

The British historian Eric Hobsbawm popularised the idea of the ‘long nineteenth century’ in European history, the notion that starting the nineteenth century sharply at 1800 and ending it at 1900 were inadequate; you had to start at 1789 with the outbreak of the French Revolution to understand everything which followed, and you had to […]

Deutsche Börse Photography Foundation Prize 2023 @ the Photographers’ Gallery

The Deutsche Börse Photography Foundation Prize is not an open competition which anyone can apply to, like the BP Portrait Award or the Royal Academy Summer exhibition. The exact opposite: the curators choose just four finalists from what they consider to have been the best photographic exhibitions staged by individual photographers, in Europe, in the […]

Another Bloody Love Letter by Anthony Loyd (2007)

Raised by talkative women, my childhood perception of what it took to be a man had long before attached itself to the wartime experiences of my family’s silent males… (Another Bloody Love Letter, page 45) Although I am going to subject it to detailed analysis and criticism, this is a bloody good book. It is […]

This Is England by Matt Small @ Guildhall Art Gallery

In the small downstairs exhibition room at the Guildhall Art Gallery there hung till recently 27 portraits of the 2022 England football squad (and manager Gareth Southgate) by black artist Matt Small. Simplest way to introduce him and the artworks is the video: Each portrait is extremely realistic in shape and anatomical features – so […]

Ted Hughes

Image after image. Image after image. As the vulture Circled. (Prometheus on his crag, Poem 20, by Ted Hughes) This overview of Ted Hughes’s career is by way of preparing for a review of Ted Hughes’s volume of translation, Tales from Ovid, in the next blog post. Ted Hughes (1930 to 1998) was one of […]

Antony and Cleopatra by William Shakespeare (1606)

“These strong Egyptian fetters I must break, Or lose myself in dotage…” (Antony in Antony and Cleopatra, Act 1, scene 2) Plot summary Act I The assassination of Julius Caesar in March 44 BC led to a period of chaos with warlords commanding legions around the Roman world, until a deal was brokered the three […]