Steve_Bamlett_blog

‘It occurs to me that good songs may haunt the mind not despite their incompleteness, but because of it’.[1] This blog pays homage for providing a book that, despite my expectations will stick with me for a long time. This blog is about Kazuo Ishiguro (2024) The Summer We Crossed Europe In The Rain: Lyrics … More ‘It occurs to me that good songs may haunt the mind not despite their incompleteness, but because of it’. This blog is about Kazuo Ishiguro (2024) ‘The Summer We Crossed Europe In The Rain: Lyrics for Stacey Kent’.

Alexandra Harris believes that in his new novel Day, Michael Cunningham writes again of ‘intimate, domestic love of many kinds: straight, gay, motherly, brotherly and avuncular love, and the love between old friends, to name a few, though the writing works against discrete categorisations’. Moreover, Harris also seems to thinks that that the focus of … More Alexandra Harris believes that in his new novel ‘Day’, Michael Cunningham writes again of ‘intimate, domestic love of many kinds: straight, gay, motherly, brotherly and avuncular love, and the love between old friends, to name a few, though the writing works against discrete categorisations’. I read it, however’, as a novel about the specificities of queer life; making it the monumental novel it is. Am I wrong or is Harris queer-blind?

‘… a child who was robbed of his belongings by a greedy world’.[1] Sex, love, power and variations of politics in the world of developing queer sexualities and why queer men feel they have to ‘learn to face loss’ in a rather wider range of life-situations than their heteronormative peers. This is a blog on … More ‘… a child who was robbed of his belongings by a greedy world’. Sex, love, power and variations of politics in developing queer sexualities. A blog on: Chukwuebuka Ibeh (2024) ‘Blessings’.

‘It is not surprising that each year Balfour Day is celebrated by the friends of Israel and mourned by Palestine’s Arabs’.[1] Does a thrilling and beautiful film like Michael Winterbottom’s Soshana (2024) help us to understand the role of British colonialism in creating the problems of the land between ‘the river (Jordan) and the sea’. … More ‘It is not surprising that each year Balfour Day is celebrated by the friends of Israel and mourned by Palestine’s Arabs’. Does a thrilling and beautiful film like Michael Winterbottom’s ‘Soshana’ (2024) help us to understand the role of British colonialism in creating the problems of the land between ‘the river (Jordan) and the sea’.

In Jack Thorne’s script from The Motive and The Cue, the character  named as the film actor Hume Cronyn, the husband of Jessica Tandy, says when he is reminded of the fact that his wife is better known than him, says: ‘Darling, better to touch the stars than never to know them at all’.[1]  This … More This blog is a preparation for seeing the National theatre screening of ‘The Motive and the Cue’ at the Gala cinema, Durham, on the 21st February 2024.

Sean O’Hagan says in recounting an interview in The Observer with Jonathan Glazer that the film he directs, The Zone of Interest, is ‘… the embodiment of the Jewish writer Primo Levi’s insistence that it is ordinary people, rather than monsters, who are capable of committing atrocity. “Monsters exist,” wrote Levi, a Holocaust survivor, “but … More Sean O’Hagan says that ‘The Zone of Interest’, is ‘… the embodiment of the Jewish writer Primo Levi’s insistence that it is ordinary people, rather than monsters, who are capable of committing atrocity. This is a blog on Jonathan Glazer’s film.