Author: Andrew Green
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Thucydides on the plague in Athens
In the bath the other morning I happened to catch an interview with the novelist Kamila Shamsie. She was asked what books she’d want to have with her if the coronavirus forced her to self-isolate for a lengthy period. She had some interesting choices. And she recommended that, instead of raiding supermarkets for toilet rolls…
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Darllen: a oes argyfwng?
Ar 7 Mawrth dathlon ni Ddiwrnod y Llyfr unwaith eto, gyda digwyddiadau mawr mewn ysgolion, siopau llyfrau a llyfrgelloedd. Ond ar drothwy’r ŵyl, cyhoeddodd y National Literacy Trust (NLT) adroddiad brawychus sy’n dangos bod darllen er pleser wedi dirywio yn sylweddol unwaith eto yn y DU. Dim ond 25.8% o blant a phobl ifanc (oedran…
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Grass for pillow: early Japanese travel poems
Last year Penguin published a selection of classical Japanese writings about travel. Travels with a writing brush, edited by the Australian translator Meredith McKinney, didn’t receive much attention at the time, but it’s a wonderful and wonderfully varied introduction to poetry and prose written in Japan between the seventh and seventeenth centuries. For anyone who’s…
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Laura Cumming and Degas’ ‘The Bellilli Family’
Many people have praised Laura Cumming’s book On Chapel Sands: my mother and other missing persons (Chatto & Windus, 2019). It begins, like a novel, with a sudden disappearance: of her three-year-old mother, in summer 1929, from a sunny beach on the Lincolnshire coast. Like a detective story it pieces together what happened, and tries…
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In defence of permanent institutions
It’s a truism to say that the destruction of trust is at the heart of societal decline. We’ve known for a long time that politicians come bottom, or close of bottom, in league tables of professions in whom the public has confidence. It’s no surprise to find that, since the financial meltdown of 2008, bankers…
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Llangeitho mewn lluniau
Digwydd bod yn Llangeitho y dydd o’r blaen, ac yn y pentrefan gerllaw, Capel Betws Lleucu. Pentref digon tawel yw Llangeitho heddiw, ac fe welais neb bron ar y strydoedd. Ond ganrif a hanner yn ôl roedd pethau’n wahanol: llawer mwy o bobl yn byw a gweithio yn yr ardal, llawer mwy o Gymraeg i’w…
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Down the rabbit hole: an early example from Gower
Alice’s adventures in Wonderland – in Lewis Carroll’s original manuscript it was entitled Alice’s adventures under ground – is probably the best-known of all tales about a child passing through a hole or tunnel in the ground to reach another world populated by strange, small creatures. It’s a common motif in fairy stories around the…
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Lucian Freud and Celia Paul
Lucian Freud isn’t one of those big artists whose star quickly fades after death. To judge by a visit to the Royal Academy exhibition of his self-portraits (it finishes tomorrow), his work still attracts plenty of public interest. The paintings were arranged chronologically, so you could follow easily the track of Freud’s development, and how…
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A fruit bat, displayed
This is one of those important, but well-concealed exhibitions that attracts large numbers of visitors mainly by word of mouth. When I was there, in the cramped basement of the Wallace Collection last weekend, I was surprised to be sharing the space with many others. Most of them seemed as smitten as I was by…
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At Strata Florida: Gerald’s vision of male beauty
I’ve been reading the account written by Gerald of Wales of the tour he made, on horseback and on foot, around the perimeter of Wales in the year 1188. The manuscript – there are actually three versions – is usually called the Itinerary through Wales, and it’s the earliest account of a long journey in…