This week's food highlight: English asparagus, from my local greengrocer's, lightly roasted in olive oil, accompanied by boiled baby Charlotte potatoes. I've decided this is about the best way to cook asparagus. Roasting those tantalising spears intensifies their flavour, while they retain a bit of bite. Then there's the auxiliary pleasures of drizzling some of …
sabbatical stats
So, my six month sabbatical comes to an end at 9:00 a.m. tomorrow. And what have I achieved in my time off? A fair amount, I reckon: One short novel, The Alloa Journal, completed Two short stories Five poems 24 blog posts And one - the only one - true love, my literary-and-more companion Nick, …
much better chop
To the Susan Hiller retrospective at Tate Britain on Good Friday afternoon. In contrast to the previous Friday's art fix, I was pretty impressed by this show, which presents a body of work produced over 40 years. Some of Hiller's recurrent themes include language, the subconscious, the hidden meanings and value of ephemera (the Rough …
not much chop
Late Friday afternoon we finally made it along to the Hayward Gallery on the Southbank to see British Art Show 7, subtitled rather meaninglessly, as far as I could make out anyway, 'In the Days of the Comet'. Billed as "the most ambitious and influential exhibition of contemporary British art", the experience, for me, was …
vernal pleasures
Blue skies over London. Trees coming into leaf, each day a brighter green. Blossom everywhere - a plethora of white and pink froth, shimmering yellow. Bare legs. Toenails painted deep red. Making salads - Greek salad, beetroot salad with garlic yoghurt. Fresh, sharp tastes. Eating Greek salad listening to Greek music with the windows open, …
journeys of a randonneur
This week's cultural highlight was the private view of Journeys of a Randonneur - cycling themed prints by the very talented Andrew Pavitt. Currently showing at London's pre-eminent cycling café Look Mum No Hands! until 3rd April, these linocut prints are both striking and stylish - a cool mix of nostalgia, dynamism and just a …
double dose
Two literary evenings on the trot. First up, on Tuesday, to the London Review Bookshop to hear Paul Farley and Michael Symmons Roberts read from and discuss their new book Edgelands: Journeys into England's True Wilderness. In the spirit of their collaborative approach to writing the book, they took turns reading passages from the chapter …
a smattering of culture, a modicum of nature
Finally got around to seeing (just about) Anish Kapoor's outdoor sculptures, Turning the World Upside Down, in Kensington Gardens late afternoon on Wednesday, only a few days before the show ends. It was overcast and already heading towards dusk, and then thanks to my excellent map reading skills we wandered quite a way along the …
Continue reading a smattering of culture, a modicum of nature
questions, questions
Can you guess what I've just finished reading? Have you heard of the novel The Interrogative Mood by Padgett Powell? If not, can you conceive of a novel composed entirely of questions? Have you already formed your own question, along the lines of: is it really a novel? Who is the interrogator, posing these surprising, …
call me pretentious
Now, I'm not an academic, nor an intellectual, but I do enjoy the occasional stimulating if brain-fogging encounter with that side of life. So, as soon as I saw last night's lecture at the British Museum advertised (part of the London Review of Books' Winter Lectures series), I knew I had to go: Cervantes, Balzac …
Hilaire 