Laura Gascoigne In April Lionel Messi put a signed pair of his adidas football boots up for auction at Christie’s. Customised with the names of his wife and sons, they were the ‘game-worn’ boots in which the Barcelona striker scored his 644th goal for his club, beating Pele’s previous record of 643 for Santos. Perfumed with the player’s DNA, they […]
Rihanna is in trouble again. This time she has offended ‘the Hindu community’ by wearing a pendant featuring the elephant god Ganesha, a fashion choice denounced on Instagram as ‘mad disrespectful’. The Barbadian singer should have known better. She has previous in the fashion department, having already upset the Chinese community by dressing up in ancient Chinese costume for a […]
Laura Gascoigne Thank God for books. When shut off from real life, you can see it reflected in novels. But how accurate is the reflection? Does the mirror distort? In month ten of the no-longer-new-abnormal I sat down with a stack of novels about artists. Some I’d read before, others were new, chief among them the fons et origo of […]
Dick French A curious little book has just come out called The Death of Francis Bacon. The author, Max Porter, won the International Dylan Thomas Prize some time ago. Whenever awards are deployed I always think of Charlotte Rampling who, in her film The Swimming Pool, remarked: “Awards are like haemorrhoids, sooner or later every arsehole gets one.” It’s not […]
Alexander Adams
Alexander Adams This article briefly outlines what happened with the toppling of the Edward Colston statue in Bristol, why it happened and its ramifications. On 7 June 2020, a large protest took place in the centre of Bristol, ostensibly against racism. The large gathering was in contravention on national and local restrictions on public gatherings due to COVID-19. No dispersal […]
William Varley reviews Addicted to Sheep So, as all cool sentences begin, I think that the best TV programme I saw last was Addicted to Sheep. In many ways this BBC4 documentary was reminiscent of the French film Être et Avoir about a remarkable teacher in a school in the remote Auvergne, although a good deal less winsome. It focused […]
Charles Thomson Sir Nicholas Serota, director of the Tate Gallery, has used the platform of the BBC in a blatant attempt to deceive the nation. Either that or he is genuinely deluded himself. Both options render him unfit for major public office. He was confronted on Radio 4 programme The Reunion: Tate Modern on September 23rd by Sue MacGregor, regarding […]
Giles Auty This was the last piece Giles submitted to The Jackdaw. He died suddenly in September, aged 86. It’s all about the money honey. When I awoke to see the front cover of the weekend Australian’s review section on June 20th it was rather like being thrown back into some weird and most unwelcome dream. Did I really read […]
