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Pet Shop Boys are not to everyone’s taste – I appreciate that many people find house music unsubtle, but it was always my brainless sound of choice. However, Pet Shop Boys are far from brainless; their score to ‘Battleship Potemkin’, performed in Trafalgar Square, was excellent, and pointed the way to new avenues, and this [...] I understand why the chattering classes are excited about the new Mad Men season, but find it difficult to share their enthusiasm. The clothes, the cocktails, the smokes, the cynicism, the moral compromises, I get all that, but it’s slow-moving, rather obvious and, being telly, very soapy. It’s also designed to make you love their [...] When it’s not actually art at all, according to Julian Spalding, the head of some of Britain’s top public galleries. He reckons the bubble will soon burst for zillionaire Damien Hirst and other “con artists” – that’s “conceptual artists”, the art of ideas wherein you think of something and pay someone else to create it [...] In 1948, with Britain still enduring ration books (they would for another five years), the GB Olympics team had to bring their own sandwiches if they wanted lunch during the games, and sports kits were of the itchy school gym variety. Now we have a fashion show just for the unveiling of Stella McCartney’s futuristic [...] Blake Snyder wrote terrific books on screenplay construction that I feel apply equally well to novels. His attitude was far less pretentious that most, and supersedes those volumes by Syd Field that now only seem to apply to 1980s action flicks. His book ‘Save The Cat!’ and its sequels sum up a lifetime of work [...]
SPOILER ALERT: It sinks. These days the press is getting such bad press that neutral reporting is clearly a desirable commodity. But neutrality still allows wordsmiths to subtly influence readers. These hidden persuaders are called ‘weasels’ in the advertising trade. I culled these examples from yesterday’s papers. The BBC reports: Singer Charlotte Church says she is “sickened” by what she [...] If you’re thinking about buying the Sun on Sunday out of curiosity value (and I don’t suppose you are because you wouldn’t be reading this) it might be worth remembering that the News of the World hacked a murdered girl’s telephone and tricked her parents into thinking she was still alive. And that this is [...] Everyone complains about how expensive London is, and part of it is down to property prices being jacked up by the super-rich attracted by the domicile laws, which are unique in the world. If you come from overseas, can prove you are going to return and can establish a domicile separate from your “residency” in [...] Traders in Frankfurt followed a long tradition by turning up to work in costume to celebrate carnival this week, thereby confirming the Mail readers’ worst fears. |
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