Lincoln Allison on Belloc and the lost art of declamation
Looking for something else entirely, I come across this piece from 2005 on the Social Affairs Unit Blog by Lincoln Allison on Hilaire Belloc’s Cautionary Verses. Allison begins with a…
Tag: social affairs unit
“the conformist anti-conformity of the books marketed at my generation” – my thoughts on “record store books”, March 17th 2005 SAU Blog
On St Patrick’s Day 2005 this piece appeared on the SAU Blog. It is somewhat in the spirit of my grumpy thoughts on book clubs from 2006 in the same…
Review of “Set Up, Joke, Set Up, Joke” by Rob Long, SAU Blog, 5th July 2006
Around the time I wrote this I was partial to insider accounts of film-making, and was favourably impressed with the sheer amount of time wasting this seemed to involve. I…
William Gerhardie – a perpetually “lost writer” rediscovered again. SAU Blog, 2005
William Gerhardie is a writer whose fame rests on obscurity. Prominent early in his career, and feted by Waugh and Greene as their better, he later became “lost.” Being “lost”…
Review of “Blockbuster”, Tom Shone, SAU Blog, February 2005
Here is the original. Tom Shone’s big idea seemed more radical in 2005 than it does now – indeed now it is pretty much mainstream. The triumph of what is still…
Sherlock Holmes and The Case of The Laboured Modernisation
From The Social Affairs Unit blog on January 5th 2005. Since this was written, and even more “modernised” version, the BBC’s “Sherlock”, has been made and widely celebrated. While I initially…
Der Untergang (Downfall) – reviewed for SAU Blog, April 28th 2005
Downfall loomed large in 2005 as a cultural phenomenon. Perhaps, at that point, the fact that some of the survivors of Hitler’s bunker were still alive made it all the…
Neil Postman’s Amusing Ourselves to Death 31 years on
I read quite a lot of Neil Postman about a decade ago. Always a readable and provocative voice, I must admit I take him rather less seriously since reading more…
Séamus Sweeney 