A documentary film first. Afghan Star directed by Havana Marking, which won a prize at the 2009 Sundance Festival, told the extraordinary story of the introduction of an American Idol/X-Factor type show in Afghanistan. Music was banned by the Taliban and the producers of the show (Afghan Star) obviously faced considerable problems when they decided to …
Month: April 2009
April Days
An account of a couple of days out in April - both during a week of glorious weather. First to Compton Verney which we had been meaning to get to for years. Compton Verney is an Adam House in south-east Warwickshire, near the Oxfordshire. The house itself is a gem as one would expect, or …
Fiona McCarthy on Byron
I have just finished Fiona McCarthy's biography Byron Life and Legend (2002). I am not going to write at any great length about this but will say that I found it in general pretty disappointing. McCarthy's particular 'angle' on B. is to stress the homosexual side of his bi-sexuality. Now I have absolutely no doubt …
Petition Against Over-Regulation of Psychotherapy
A current issue of great importance to me. The background to this is the Government's desire to promote CBT as the one valid talking therapy, impose a single definition of 'mental health' (which means working) and attack Incapacity and other benefits. It is Orwellian in the true sense of the word because it involves the …
Continue reading Petition Against Over-Regulation of Psychotherapy
QDL on DLS
It was at St Hilda's 2007 (see https://movingtoyshop.wordpress.com/2009/02/25/st-hildas-2007/ ) that I heard Jill Paton Walsh discuss Q.D.Leavis's attack on Dorothy L. Sayers and I have been meaning to find the article ever since; finally I got myself into Birmingham Central Library and obtained the relevant volume of Scrutiny - it is Volume 6, Number 3 (December …
Moving Toyshop
Ellen has very kindly pointed out to me that I have never really explained the title of my blog! A pretty daft omission but there you go. The primary allusion comes from Pope's Rape of The Lock, a favourite poem of mine ; the exact lines (from Canto 1) are as follows... >>With varying Vanities, …
The Tenway Junction
I have just finished The Prime Minister, the fifth of Trollope's six Palliser novels or sequence (I have been struggling to catch up with the Trollope-l reading schedule and am now within a few weeks of doing so!). Without going into any lengthy analysis of this great book I did want to just add a …
March Music, Movies, Mysteries
A few miscellaneous March events. First the musical. A stupendous performance of Britten's War Requiem at Symphony Hall by the The Royal Opera House Orchestra and Chorus. Everything about this was terrific; the conducting by Antonio Pappano, the soloists Ian Bostridge, Simon Keenlyside and Emma Bell, the choral singing and, above all of course, the …
Moving Toyshop 