Sex, death and dissonance: the strange, obsessive world of Anton Bruckner | Classical music
Posted on June 21, 2024
| 5 minutes
| 940 words
| Kary Bruening
Classical musicSex, death and dissonance: the strange, obsessive world of Anton BrucknerThere's no doubt Anton Bruckner was an oddball, a man with an unhealthy interest in dead bodies and teenage girls. But the composer's obsessions and terrors also gave us some astonishing musicA credulous yokel who propositioned girls half his age. A death-obsessed ghoul who kept a photo of his mother's corpse. A cranky, backwards-looking obsessive. The composer of some of the 19th century's greatest, grandest and most ambitious symphonies.
[Read More]The Five Sorrowful Mysteries of Andy Africa review high-risk comic debut
Posted on June 21, 2024
| 5 minutes
| 1006 words
| Jenniffer Sheldon
Book of the dayFictionReviewStephen Buoro’s tale of a teenager in Nigeria, hanging with his friends and hankering after white girls, ticks all the boxes of a literary blockbuster
This ticks all the boxes of a literary blockbuster. It’s a debut novel by a promising Nigerian writer and Booker Prize Foundation Scholarship recipient. It comes with a dreamy publication backstory involving an eight-way auction, pre-empt deals, meaty advances and praises galore. The book features a voice that is upbeat, familiar, catchy and breezy as a pop song:
[Read More]To gain respect, you need success: the trans tycoon from Thailand who bought up Miss Universe
Posted on June 21, 2024
| 5 minutes
| 941 words
| Kary Bruening
Thailand This article is more than 1 year oldInterview‘To gain respect, you need success’: the trans tycoon from Thailand who bought up Miss UniverseThis article is more than 1 year oldRebecca RatcliffeAnne Jakrajutatip, boss of JKN Global, recently made headlines by buying the firm behind the contest for $20m
Anne Jakrajutatip, 43, has a story unlike many of the world’s media moguls. Growing up in Bangkok, the child of shop owners, she felt that she was trapped in the wrong body.
[Read More]When were elastic bands invented, and by whom? | Notes and Queries
Posted on June 21, 2024
| 2 minutes
| 281 words
| Kary Bruening
NOOKS AND CRANNIESWhen were elastic bands invented, and by whom? THE ENGLISHMAN Thomas Hancock invented the rubber band in about 1820. The bands invented at that time were not vulcanised and would soften on hot days or harden on cold ones. The American Charles Goodyear invented vulcanisation in the 1840s, but Hancock was quick to exploit the technique (and claimed the invention!): vulcanisation eliminated the temperature dependence of rubber behaviour.
[Read More]Austere, silent and nameless - Whiteread's concrete tribute to victims of nazism
Posted on June 20, 2024
| 3 minutes
| 557 words
| Aldo Pusey
Art and designReviewClosed books and stilled lives
Finally, five-and-a-half years after Rachel Whiteread's design for a Holocaust memorial in Vienna was approved, the sculpture was unveiled.
As much as it is a sculpture Whiteread's memorial is a closed, windowless single storey building. It sits on a low plinth at one end of Judenplatz. The walls are covered from top to bottom in row upon row of books. But it is as though they have been turned to face the wall.
[Read More]Harlots season three review smutty sex-trade drama is a feminist triumph
Posted on June 20, 2024
| 4 minutes
| 743 words
| Kary Bruening
TV reviewTelevision & radioReviewLiv Tyler and Lesley Manville chew the scenery with glee as TV’s hidden gem deftly juggles the humorous and the heinous
Georgian England in the 1760s, and another girl is being auctioned off to the highest – and highest-wigged – bidder. Not by a bawd in the brothels of Soho, but by a father in the bucolic countryside where his daughter Catherine – “a headstrong girl” who “with firm instruction shall transform into a biddable and doting wife” – has captured the interest of a potential husband.
[Read More]How racist propaganda inspired riots in Americas biggest cities 360 video | US news
Posted on June 20, 2024
| 5 minutes
| 864 words
| Chauncey Koziol
Red SummersHow racist propaganda inspired riots in America’s biggest cities – 360 videoAnti-Black racism in school curriculums, newspapers and film set the scene for a week of racial violence in Chicago and Washington DC
by Bayeté Ross Smith. Essay by Jimmie Briggs00:06:03How racist propaganda inspired riots in America's biggest citiesHundreds of miles apart, two of the worst instances of racially motivated attacks in American history occurred within days of each other during the 1919 Red Summer.
[Read More]Look 785 Huez RS review: A mountain-climbing machine that defies gravity
Posted on June 20, 2024
| 4 minutes
| 726 words
| Aldo Pusey
Bicycle of the weekTechnologyReviewThe steepest roads hold no fear on the new lightweight bike from French brand Look. Your only worry is that it’s making the sport too easy…
Look 785 Huez RS
Price £8,700, lookcycle.com
Frame carbon
Groupset Shimano Dura-Ace 9100
Wheels Corima
At this time of year the Alpe d’Huez is usually a frosty -20C and blanketed in snow. With its views across the Alps it is a magnet for skiers, boarders and – if you’re anything like my wife – people who prefer to sit on a sun deck wrapped in a blanket and sip chocolat chaud.
[Read More]Ringing the changes: how Britains red phone boxes are being given new life
Posted on June 20, 2024
| 11 minutes
| 2160 words
| Valentine Belue
TelecomsIt’s a design classic, but in these days of ubiquitous mobile phones, only 10,000 of the red kiosks remain on the streets. Can they survive the next decade?
John Farmer, who describes himself as an activist shareholder, is a man with a mission – to save Britain’s red phone boxes. These were once a feature of every high street in the country, but now number only 10,000 or so (and half of those are decorative rather than operational).
[Read More]The Fault in Our Stars by John Green - review | Children's books
Posted on June 20, 2024
| 2 minutes
| 238 words
| Jenniffer Sheldon
Children's booksChildren's booksThe Fault in Our Stars by John Green - review‘I realised that cancer not just touches victims, but it also touches all those who love’
The Fault In Our Stars is a novel written by John Green, a renowned author of Young Adult fiction. The story gives an account of Hazel, who can hardly remember life without cancer and has almost given up hope on her life. She then meets Augustus Waters, a cancer survivor, who reads her favourite books for her and hangs out with her and this helps her to gather strength.
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