Author Archives: leslie

Bloody Gori

Posted on October 12, 2024 by leslie

 Bloody Gori, by Bill Hartley There is a museum dedicated to Stalin in his birthplace, the Georgian town of Gori. It doesn’t contain many items which actually belonged to him, since Stalin wasn’t the acquisitive sort, at least in the … Continue reading →

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Our Tailor-Made Parliament

Posted on October 4, 2024 by leslie

Our Tailor-Made Parliament Richard Wendorf There has been much gnashing of teeth about the clothing allowance that has recently been bestowed upon members of the Labour cabinet, but the real outrage is not that Lord Alli and others have quietly … Continue reading →

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Deconstruction Time

Posted on September 30, 2024 by leslie

Deconstruction Time Don H Doyle, The Age of Reconstruction; How Lincoln’s New Birth of Freedom Remade the World, Don H Doyle, Princeton University Press, Princeton & Oxford, 2024, hb, 369pp, reviewed by Leslie Jones In Garibaldi, Invention of a Hero, … Continue reading →

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Endnotes, October 2024

Posted on September 27, 2024 by leslie

Endnotes, October 2024 In this edition: more Bruckner from the archives * Dvorak from the Czech homeland * contemporary music from England and America, reviewed by Stuart Millson SOMM Records continues to open its vast treasury of vintage Bruckner recordings, … Continue reading →

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An Arbitrary Colourist

Posted on September 19, 2024 by leslie

An Arbitrary Colourist, Van Gogh, Poets & Lovers Exhibition at the National Gallery, 14 September 2024 – 19 January 2025, press preview 11 September; Catalogue of the exhibition, Cornelia Homburg, featuring the essay ‘Art of the Future’; reviewed by Leslie … Continue reading →

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Endnotes, September 2024

Posted on August 31, 2024 by leslie

Endnotes, September 2024 In this edition: The Man from the Sky; orchestral music by Gerard Schurmann; wood nymphs, country songs and planets at the Proms; two ‘lost’ works by Vaughan Williams, reviewed by Stuart Millson British composer Gerard Schurmann (1924-2020) … Continue reading →

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Flying Blind

Posted on August 16, 2024 by leslie

Flying Blind Challenger: A True Story of Heroism and Disaster, Adam Higginbotham, Simon and Shuster, pp 576, reviewed by Bill Hartley Governments can’t resist projects on a gargantuan scale and when they go wrong the disaster is of a magnitude … Continue reading →

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The Knot of Human Death and Fate

Posted on August 7, 2024 by leslie

The Knot of Human Death and Fate Dan Stone, Psychoanalysis, Historiography, and the Nazi Camps: Accounting for Survival, Palgrave Macmillan, electronic version, 2024, reviewed by Leslie Jones In From Death-Camp to Existentialism: A Psychiatrist’s Path to a New Therapy (1946), … Continue reading →

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Endnotes, August 2024

Posted on July 31, 2024 by leslie

Endnotes, August 2024 In this edition: Bruckner’s String Quintet; From Meadow to Mayfair, with Eric Coates, reviewed by Stuart Millson 200 years ago this year, Anton Bruckner was born — a boy who would be shaped by his rural environment in … Continue reading →

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Mea Culpa

Posted on July 19, 2024 by leslie

Mea Culpa, by Bill Hartley The City of York and County of North Yorkshire now has an elected mayor. The fact that this was going to happen may have come as a surprise to many in the local electorate. Judging … Continue reading →

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