A very happy birthday, as ever, to mraltarielI'm in the throes of going to press - a week earlier than usual in recent years, which means there's a chance I might be able to nip across to Sheffield for some of Redemption. But things are pretty awful now, which is probably why it took me a week to notice that Alec McCowen has died. On reading the obituary, ( Read more... )

A very happy birthday to mraltariel! Hope you're having a relaxing but stimulating day! And a happy Valentine's Day to those of you who do that sort of thing ( Read more... )

Happy Birthday to
( Read more... )

I still haven't posted about the Richter/Pärt event at the Manchester International Festival, which I went to see after my council leader tweeted that "Richter/Pärt at the Whitworth one of the best things MIF has done. Ever!"

Don't think I'd put it ahead of Maxine declaiming the Masque of Anarchy two years ago, but I did enjoy it. Several works ( Read more... )

Another mostly illustrated weekend report. I was in Ely briefly yesterday, and passed through a belt of Morris People on my way to the station, part of Ely Folk Festival. I was particularly taken with this group, who are apparently Hemlock Morris from Bedfordshire.
( Hemlock Morris )

I hop you're having as glorious a day as we've had here! A decisive majority for equal marriage in Ireland, with all the accompanying scenes of rejoicing - and, finally, Oscar Romero has been beatified! I have waited a very long time for that one ( Read more... )

And today we lost Daevid Allen, of the Soft Machine, Gong, and himself. As he said last month, when he was told he had approximately six months to live, "I am a great believer in 'The Will of the Way Things Are' and I also believe that the time has come to stop resisting and denying and to surrender to the way it is. I can only hope that during ( Read more... )

A happy birthday to mraltariel! And a happy Valentine's Day to those of you who celebrate that sort of thing ( Read more... )

Today would be Nesta Roberts' 102nd birthday. She has been much in my mind this week, in the aftermath of the Paris shootings. Though it's forty years since she left, I still think of Paris as Nesta's city, and it gradually dawned on me that Charlie Hebdo was founded during her time as the Guardian's correspondent there. I doubt it was regular ( Read more... )

Happy Birthday to the Doctor (sort of) and Clara (in at least two incarnations)! And Happy Birch Moon ( Read more... )