Critic Cal

" I wish either my father or my mother, or indeed both of them, as they were in duty both equally bound to it, had minded what they were about when they begot me; had they duly consider'd how much depended upon what they were then doing;—that not only the production of a rational Being was concerned in it, but that possibly the happy formation and temperature of his body, perhaps his genius and the very cast of his mind;—and, for aught they knew to the contrary, even the fortunes of his whole house might take their turn from the humours and dispositions which were then uppermost;—Had they duly weighed and considered all this, and proceeded accordingly,—I am verily persuaded I should have made a quite different figure in the world, from that in which the reader is likely to see me." ( Tristram Shandy , Gentleman. [1]) Lately, it would seem, babies have been popping out all over the place. Social networking keeps me updated of their arrivals and progress -- often in minu...

One of the many nice things about working in a place full of intelligent and interesting people [1] is that they tend to know about such intelligent and interesting things. A slightly unfortunate consequence of this is that I can't seem to have a conversation with any one of them without adding to my already infeasibly long list of things I'd like to read/watch/listen to/learn about. Gone, for instance, are the days when I could dismiss the entirety of contemporary fiction as unworthy of my attention; enough of it has found favour enough with my respected companions that I must resign myself to the likelihood that some of it may have some merit to it after all. Thus did I deign to read ' The Shadow of the Wind ', a novel 18 years my junior. And -- *sigh* -- it quickly won my begrudging affection with its warmth, compassion and convicting insight; even, in places (briefly, mind, and inferiorly) prompting comparison with ' The Brother...

In the series finale of the sort-of-endearing, sort-of-dreadful " Don't Trust the B**** in Apartment 23 ", the extreme New York party lifestyle finally catches up with once sweet-and-innocent country girl June and she winds up in A&E having her stomach pumped. The rest of the episode is about the damage this threatens to do to her relationships and social life as she struggles to find non-drinking-related ways of spending time with wild socialite Chloe (somewhat of a Cruella de Vil-meets-Holly Golightly type character) and her celebrity best friend James Van Der Beek [1] for the six months that she is ordered to rest her liver. It is at once ridiculous and sad that alcohol should play a sufficiently central role in friendship and fun for this to be an easy set-up for a sitcom plot. Having grown up in Britain -- binge-drinking capital of the world and primary exporter of drunken tourists (stags and hens and their entourages in particular) -- I am well-used to seeing ...

"Prison changes a man". Except, it seems, it all-too-often doesn't . Research reported in this 2010 article , for example, found reconviction rates of 70% or more in 14 UK prisons. Here's not to dwell on the statistics though -- they can be misrepresentative and/or misrepresented and besides I've no desire to get drawn into the science or politics of the prison system. Suffice to say, the seemingly well-established fact is that incarcerating a troubled (drug dependent? alcoholic? mentally ill? socially marginalised? embittered? abused? self-deceiving? desperate? unemployable?) person is unlikely to relieve them of their troubled state and may well serve to exacerbate and further entrench the patterns of damaging behaviour that got them in there in the first place. Enter Gordon Ramsay. *Sigh*. Channel 4's ' Gordon Behind Bars ' is the latest in a string of 'famous chefs solve major societal problems' campaigns, and, for all its good intentions...

The BBC recently televised the RSC's 2012 production of Julius Caesar . It was very good, apparently. So, having (typically) failed to catch it on iPlayer…we did one better, and made the trip to Stratford-upon-Avon, just in time for the second-to-last performance. Ha, I may yet meet my spontaneity quota for the year after all. It was stunning…the modern African setting (which did not feel forced or stretched at any point) was perfect excuse for some spectacularly vibrant music and dance. Indeed, this was how the play opened --the streets of 'Rome' streaming with a partying public fervently celebrating the forthcoming arrival of the beloved statesman. But the power and popularity Caesar has amassed threatens the constitution of the Republic, and there is an atmosphere of growing unease amongst the senators and even between his close friends: BRUTUS     What means this shouting? I do fear, the people     Choose Caesar for their king. CASSIUS  ...

Wimbledon is here. Wait, now... didn't Beckett's Lucky have something to say about tennis? Ordered to 'think', and supplied with his requisite hat, he spouts... “Given the existence as uttered forth in the public works of Puncher and Wattmann of a personal God quaquaquaqua with white beard quaquaquaqua outside time without extension who from the heights of divine apathia divine athambia divine aphasia loves us dearly with some exceptions for reasons unknown but time will tell and suffers like the divine Miranda with those who for reasons unknown but time will tell are plunged in torment plunged in fire whose fire flames if that continues and who can doubt it will fire the firmament that is to say blast heaven to hell so blue still and calm so calm with a calm which even though intermittent is better than nothing but not so fast and considering what is more that as a result of the labours left unfinished crowned by the Acacacacademy of Anthropopopometry […] waste and ...

It's Bloomsday today, and Father's day tomorrow. James Joyce 's Ulysses , set on the 16th June 1904, is a phenomenal, bewildering, literary roller-coaster of a book which everyone should read [1] and which I would be fool to attempt to write about. Since previous posts have well-established me as such, here are my hasty scribblings. Still, points for topicality, no? Fittingly, fatherhood is a running theme. A father in search of a son: middle-aged Leopold Bloom, (the Odysseus figure), lost his infant son 11 years ago and feels emotionally estranged from his wife (the Penelope figure) of whose numerous affairs he is well aware. A son in search of a father: 22 year old aspiring writer, Stephen Dedalus (the Telemachus figure), has suffered the long-running neglect of an alcoholic father and has recently lost his mother. The story describes, in a variety of challengingly experimental literary modes, events in both their lives -- ranging from the basest of bodily functions...