Monday, December 29, 2008

Joss Stone 'in new relationship' with old friend


British soul singer Joss Stone

Joss Stone 'in new relationship' with old friend

The British soul singer Joss Stone is in a relationship with a family friend she grew up with, according to reports.


8:14AM GMT 29 Dec 2008


The 21-year-old from Devon is reported to be in a relationship with Danny Radford, 19, who works in the building trade.
Stone, who has sold over 10 million albums worldwide, has known him for most of her life but they only started their romance in the summer.
"Joss and Danny are definitely an item now. He's been staying with her at her home in Devon when she's home from Los Angeles, and they're inseparable" a friend told the Sun.
The friend added the two had grown close on a recent trip to Amsterdam.
"One of the reasons that they work so well is that Joss trusts him completely.
"She knew him before she was famous and he has been close to her family for years.
"Joss's mum loves him and trusts him not to hurt her."
Danny, who still lives with his parents - close to Joss's family home - is her first steady boyfriend since Beau Dozier, the music producer.
She met Beau Dozier when she was 17 and moved to live with him in LA. But they split up after 18 months.

THE TELEGRAPH



FICCIONES
FOTOS

DE OTROS MUNDOS

DANTE


Posted by at No comments:
Labels: ,

Saturday, December 6, 2008

Sapper / Bulldog Drummond / Daydreams of empire




Bulldog Drummond

Daydreams of empire


Nicholas Lezard
Saturday 6 December 2008 00.01 GMT

T
hey don't really do heroes like Bulldog Drummond any more. After a reverie about his days in the first world war strangling German soldiers behind enemy lines, we are told: "There are in England today quite a number of civilians who acknowledge only two rulers - the King and Hugh Drummond. And they would willingly die for either."

This is just as well, for in this, the first of the hugely successful series of novels (Herman Cyril McNeile adopted the pseudonym "Sapper" because serving officers could not publish under their own names), Bulldog Drummond comes up against as nasty a pair of villains as you could wish to meet, the chief of whom is hell-bent on bringing Britain, whose victorious army has just marched into Cologne, to her knees.

It is odd how books such as these begin with boredom. Carruthers in The Riddle of the Sands (1903) is half out of his mind with boredom; John Buchan's Hannay begins The Thirty-Nine Steps (1915) "pretty well disgusted with life"; the war has yet to begin. When it is over, Bulldog Drummond, "finding peace increasingly tedious", goes so far as to place an advertisement in a newspaper asking for diversion: "legal, if possible; but crime, if of a comparatively humorous description, no objection". Years later, James Bond - who Ian Fleming acknowledged was at least partly based on Drummond - would begin his career nauseated by the smell of a casino at three in the morning. This is because the works are, as a clever colleague of mine pointed out, all daydreams; and indeed one wonders what kind of mind it is that yearns for war as a diversion.
One particularly wonders about "Sapper". His work has been routinely condemned for its xenophobia and antisemitism. But while one should indeed condemn these attitudes, at least this novel is largely free of them (although you will search in vain for anything faintly resembling progressiveness). Antisemitism and other ugly prejudices were, to varying degrees, the order of the day (consider the line in The Thirty-Nine Steps about how "the Jew" now "has his knife in the Empire of the Tsar because his aunt was outraged and his father flogged in some one-horse location on the Volga").
But in this novel, at least, there is not too much to worry about. There is something Arcadian about Drummond. He has a rather familiar kind of innocence. His manservant, his ex-batman, serves him his morning beer loyally and "discreetly" leaves the room when he starts speculating about an encounter with a woman; and Drummond himself can begin a chapter with the line "I almost think, James, that I could toy with another kidney" (for breakfast). Does this remind you of anyone? Of course it does. What we have here is a PG Wodehouse story, almost; a Wodehouse story with master criminals (we also have murderous trained gorillas, acid baths, booby-traps and savages armed with poison darts hiding on the tops of wardrobes) - the kind of story, in fact, that Wodehouse's more impressionable heroes use to fire up their own imaginations. We even have gangs of loyal, tiddly young blades called Algy who call each other priceless asses, or some such.
Drummond himself is unflappable, unambiguously heroic, nonchalantly lighting cigarettes faster than he can smoke them (I could have sworn that at one point he had a pipe in his hand at the same time), making cheeky quips - many of them genuinely amusing - to the villains and getting the girl, despite the honest, ugly features which gave him his nickname. And the chief villain, of course, occasionally expresses regret that he will have to exterminate so worthy an opponent. ("You are meddling in affairs . . . of the danger of which you have no conception.")
So yes, it's an imperial fantasy - just the kind of thing Guardian readers should be shaking their heads and going tut-tut about. But, being Guardian readers, you will know that you are immune from the dangers of such fantasies, and can instead enjoy the work on its simplest, most straightforward level: as a rattling good yarn.


Posted by at No comments:
Labels: , , ,

Friday, November 21, 2008

Life and style / Hugh Hefner / There was a moment when I was having sex with four Playmates

Hugh Hefner
LIFE AND STYLE
Q&A: Hugh Hefner
'My most treasured possession? A rotating round bed'

by Rossana Greenstreet
The Guardian, Saturday 21 November 2008


Hugh Hefner was born in Chicago in 1926. He served in the army during the second world war, and went on to study psychology at university. In 1953, he launched Playboy magazine, and by 1971, when Playboy Enterprises became a public company, it was selling 7m copies. He remains editor-in-chief. He is twice divorced and has four children. His illustrated autobiography is published this month by Taschen.
When were you happiest?
Now: I just passed my 83rd birthday and look back on a life well lived.
What is your earliest memory? 
When I was four, we moved to the house on the west side of Chicago where I grew up. My earliest memories are of that first summer.
What is the trait you most deplore in yourself? 
Crankiness.
What is the trait you most deplore in others? 
Deceit.
Property aside, what's the most expensive thing you've ever bought?
A McDonnell Douglas DC-9.
What is your most treasured possession?
My rotating round bed.
What would your super power be? 
Immortality.
What makes you unhappy? 
Not being in a loving relationship.
What do you most dislike about your appearance? 
I am losing my hair.
Who would play you in the film of your life?
They are talking now about Robert Downey Jr.
What is your favourite book? 
The Great Gatsby.
What would be your fancy dress costume of choice?
My pyjamas.
What is your guiltiest pleasure? 
My life, probably!
What do you owe your parents? 
My ideals.
What or who is the greatest love of  your life? 
Probably my girlfriend, Crystal Harris. She's an upcoming Playmate.
What does love feel like? 
It completes me.
Who would you invite to your dream dinner party?
I don't have dinner parties – I eat my dinner in bed.
Which words or phrases do you most overuse?
"What the fuck?"
If you could edit your past, what would you change?
That's a very dangerous game.
If you could go back in time, where would you go? 
To my childhood.
When did you last cry, and why? 
Last weekend, at a screening of Hugh Hefner: Playboy, Activist And Rebel.
How do you relax? 
With my girls, in bed, watching a movie, just having a good time.
How often do you have sex? 
Two to three times a week.
What is the closest you've come to death?
There was a moment when I was having sex with four Playmates and I almost swallowed a Ben Wa ball.
What do you consider your greatest achievement?
To have had a positive impact on the social-sexual values of my time.
What keeps you awake at night? 
The need to go to the john several times a night – that comes with age.
What song would you like played at your funeral?
As Time Goes By, Frank Sinatra.
What is the most important lesson life has taught you? 
To hold on to your dreams.

Posted by at No comments:
Labels: , , , ,

Saturday, October 25, 2008

Life and style / Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie

Chimamand Ngozi Adiche
LIFE AND STYLE

Q&A

Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie


Novelist
Rosanna Greenstreet
Saturday 25 October 2008 00.01 BST

C
himamanda Ngozi Adichie was born in 1977 in Nigeria. She studied medicine, then at 19 went to the US, where she gained a degree in communication and political science, and a master's in creative writing. Purple Hibiscus, her debut novel, published in 2003, was shortlisted for the Orange prize for fiction and longlisted for the Booker. Her second novel, Half Of A Yellow Sun, was published in 2006 and won the 2007 Orange prize. This week she has been at the Cheltenham Festival, which finishes tomorrow.
When were you happiest? 
All the years before I turned 15. Or so it looks to me in retrospect.
What is your greatest fear? 
That I will lose the people I love.
What is your earliest memory?
I was about four. Our house help, Innocent, was plaiting my hair and I was crying, squirming, reaching out for the pack of Smarties my mother had placed on a table in front of me - just out of my reach - as a bribe.
Which living person do you most admire and why? 
My father, because he doesn't think that real life is going on somewhere else, in a universe parallel to his.
What is the trait you most deplore in yourself?
My unforgiving nature.
What is the trait you most deplore in others?
Self-righteousness.
What was your most embarrassing moment?
I must have blocked the memory.
Aside from a property, what's the most expensive thing you've ever bought? 
My car.
What is your most treasured possession?
I own things I like, but nothing inanimate that I treasure in a deeply consuming way.
Where would you like to live?
In a large, sprawling house in a shady compound in Enugu, eastern Nigeria.
What is your most unappealing habit?
You don't want to know.
What makes you depressed?
Watching the news.
What do you most dislike about your appearance?
My big toe looks like a tortoise's head.
If you could bring something extinct back to life, what would you choose?
A mammoth.
What is your favourite book?
Chinua Achebe's Arrow Of God.
What would you most like to wear to a costume party? 
A Victorian dress, a bonnet and a sheathed sword across my shoulder.
What is your guiltiest pleasure?
All my pleasures are guilt-free.
What or who is the greatest love of your life?
My family. My partner, Ivara.
What does love feel like?
Comfort. Time shared.
What was the best kiss of your life?
My teenage crush, Nnamdi.
What is the worst thing anyone's ever said to you?
I'd better not say. They might read it and realise I'm still plotting revenge.
What do you owe your parents?
A joyful childhood. And so much more.
To whom would you most like to say sorry, and why?
To the girls in my class at primary school, for being a bully.
Who would you invite to your dream dinner party?
Iris Murdoch, Sidney Poitier and Thomas Sankara.
Which words or phrases do you most overuse?
'Sort of.'
What is the worst job you've ever done?
Undergraduate intern at the Philadelphia water department.
What has been your biggest disappointment?
Not having known my grandfathers.
If you could edit your past, what would you change?
I would not have stopped playing soccer in grade five.
If you could go back in time, where would you go?
The west coast of Africa circa 1650.
When did you last cry, and why?
Three weeks ago at the airport, saying goodbye to my brother and best friend.
How do you relax?
I read.
What do you consider your greatest achievement?
Finishing Half Of A Yellow Sun.
What song would you like played at your funeral?
Uwa Bu Olili, by Celestine Ukwu.
How would you like to be remembered?
As a person who tried to tell the truth and tried to be kind (and knew that sometimes the two are contradictory).
What is the most important lesson life has taught you?
That the universe will not bend to your plans. It does its own thing.


Posted by at No comments:
Labels: , , , , , , ,

Monday, October 6, 2008

Sándor Marái / Memory of Hungry / The treason of an implacable moralist





The treason of an implacable moralist

Sándor Márai: Memoir of Hungary


Márai’s oeuvre was shaken out of its coma after 1989, when his works were first published in Hungary, then later went on to reach international success. By leaving Hungary in 1948, he made a decision that proved to be fateful from the point of view of his oeuvre’s future in his native land; at the same time, it was a natural extension of an exile intended to be a symbolically powerful, moral reminder. 

Zoltán András Bán
6 October 2008

In contrast to the general air of acceptance and success surrounding Sándor Márai’s literary works in Western Europe, the literary world in Hungary remains unequivocally divided in its opinion of Sándor Márai’s oeuvre. Outside of Hungary, Márai is first and foremost recognized as a great writer of fiction whose novels were released one after another in all major languages following the enormous success his novel, Embers, attained in Italy. In his homeland, however, Márai is more commonly praised for his works that bear a closer resemblance to non-fiction. Every credible literary critic in Hungary, for example, agrees that Márai’s Confessions of a Citizen, a two-volume memoir originally published in the 1930’s, is his most significant work. At the same time, many others find his Diary—begun in 1943 and regularly kept by the author, who allowed a heavily edited version of his personal diaries to be published first in Hungary, then abroad following his immigration—to be equal in ranking.  (A few years ago Helikon Publishers in Hungary began to release the complete edition of Márai’s Diary, compiled according to the existing manuscript.)  Not surprisingly, Memoir of Hungary—in many respects a continuation of Confession of a Citizen—is also numbered amongst Sándor Márai’s best works. 
Read more »
Posted by at No comments:
Labels: , , ,

Sunday, September 28, 2008

Forgotten Authors No 6 / Victoria Holt

Pin en Universal Writers
Victoria Holt

Forgotten Authors

 No 6

 Victoria Holt


Christopher Fowley
Sunday 28 September 2008

Stay with me - this gets complicated. Victoria Holt's real name was Eleanor Hibbert (née Burford), born in Kensington, 1906.
After signing books as Elbur Ford (a contraction of her birth name), she used pseudonyms including Jean Plaidy (a name taken from a Cornish beach), Philippa Carr, Kathleen Kellow and others, and wrote around 200 historical novels. She sold staggering amounts, in the region of 100 million copies. Lately, there have been some excellent reissues of the Plaidy titles, so it's a good time to rediscover Britain's most popular historical novelist. She was feted for blending accurate period detail with strong plots and rich characterisation, so what happened to "The Queen of Romantic Suspense"?
Burford was first published in 1941 for an advance of £30. Soon she was writing about Catherine de Medici, Charles II, Katherine of Aragon, Marie Antoinette and Lucrezia Borgia. Her style had enough gusto to draw polite applause from the critics, but her public adored her. This wasn't enough; she chronicled criminal cases, then embarked upon great cycles of novels in chronological order, covering the Normans, Plantagenets, Tudors, Stuarts, Georgians and Victorians. She branched into gothic romance, mystery, non-fiction and children's books, and particularly enjoyed portraying feisty women of independence and integrity who fought for liberation.
Her viewpoints ring true; Hitler, she says in The English Are Like That, made the fatal mistake of frightening the English. Hamlet, she notes, is not incapable of action; he kills his man three times in the play. It's hard to find anyone with anything bad to say about her ideas, which makes her disappearance even stranger.
Perhaps her ubiquity rendered her disposable; popularity rarely guarantees posterity. Then there were those horrible pastel covers that reminded one of Quality Street chocolates. The truth is that popular historical fiction for women became unfashionable, just as surely as men stopped reading tales of kings and explorers. In came chick-lit and laddish stories that eschewed any mention of our past collective history. Hibbert died on a cruise between Greece and Egypt, in her 80s. "Never regret," she once said. "If it's good, it's wonderful. If it's bad, it's experience."




Posted by at No comments:
Labels: , , ,

Saturday, September 20, 2008

Philip Roth / Indignation / Review



 Review: Indignation by Philip Roth

12:05AM BST 20 Sep 2008
Tibor Fischer, an uncommitted Philip Roth reader, finds himself converted
'The car in which I had taken Olivia to dinner and then out to the cemetery - a historic vehicle, even a monument of sorts, in the history of fellatio's advent onto the Winesburg campus in the second half of the twentieth century - went careering off to the side.'
Yes, it's the new Philip Roth novel.
There is a part of me that wishes Roth would stop writing about sex, because he writes so much better about other things, and after Portnoy's Complaint, The Breast, Sabbath's Theater (and, well, most of his novels) does he have any fresh flesh left?
Venery; being Jewish; the campus; these are all the topoi you expect to find in a Philip Roth production, and they're all here.
Set in the late Forties and early Fifties, a whiff of The Catcher in the Rye drifts into Indignation. But above all is the shadow of the Grim Reaper, who is looming larger and larger in Roth's pages.
Marcus Messner, son of a kosher butcher from Newark, goes to the Mid-West college of Winesburg to escape his father's mania for his safety and well-being.
Marcus wants good grades, he is obsessed indeed with academic success, because he doesn't want to have to pull out chicken entrails for a living and because he fears the draft and ending up in a foxhole in Korea facing waves of bayonet-wielding Chinese.


    With the death of Saul Bellow, the silence of Salinger, the diminution of Updike, Roth has smoothed his way to the front of American letters. He's the Don.
    I have to say I've never been rendered agog by a Roth novel: Tom Wolfe's done that, Tom Robbins has done that, Charles Willeford has done that. While I've enjoyed several of Roth's novels, I've never had that urge, the evangelical urge which is the hallmark of a great book, to force the book onto others.
    For example, Roth's much-praised novel The Plot Against America, an alternative history of the United States, was skilfully executed, but it was a book I failed to care about. Why write an alternative history of something when you can write the real history? I felt it was an accomplished but hollow exercise.


    Indignation, however, is one of the strongest skeletoned of Roth's novels, and is a model of authorial misdirection and narrative muscle. Nearly every time you think you can see where the novel is going, Roth changes tack, almost as if the whole book were written to a blueprint of zig-zags.
    Winesburg College is a small canvas to work with, but Roth cultivates it masterfully. The portrait of Messner's parents, his ultra-anxious father and kvelling mother, is superb.
    Bernard Malamud's depiction of working-class and poor Jews is perhaps more engaging than Roth's, but you could certainly accuse Malamud of occasionally slapping on some romantic poverty and pushing the dignity of hard graft.
    This isn't the case with Roth: his description of depressed post-war New Jersey is as warm and appealing as a butcher's slab. While Messner's relations with his fellow students (another much-written-about subject) - the irritating room-mates, the frat boys, the nutty fellatrix - are as good as character studies get.
    'I inwardly sang out the most beautiful word in the English language: In-dig-na-tion!' Messner tells us during a sticky interview with the Dean of Winesburg.
    One wonders why Messner finds the word so beautiful since his frequent encounters with the emotion are so hard for him to contend with. What is his indignation about? The sanctimonious Dean, the strictures of 1950s college life, the indignities of existence?
    My one (minor) disappointment with the book is the last chapter, where the narration changes from first person to third and the fate of Marcus Messner (something most readers will have guessed) is spelt out.
    If I had to choose one word to sum up Indignation I'd go for classy. If I were allowed two: very classy.





    Posted by at No comments:
    Labels: , , ,
    Subscribe to: Posts (Atom)