The Euro: The Politics of the New Global Currency by David Marsh
Yale University Press, £25
WHY does the euro cause such convulsions in British politics? In this important and highly readable book about the European single currency, David Marsh brings to life the historical genesis, birth pangs and now remarkable achievements of a currency that no one would have thought possible only a generation ago.
Hockney on Art: Conversations with Paul Joyce
Little Brown, £15
DAVID HOCKNEY, one of Britain’s best known living artists, is respected as much for his outspoken views – such as his theories on the development and understanding of perspective – as for his paintings and drawings. Open about his (homo)sexuality, Hockney is a committed humanist and often outspoken on topical issues.
We Gave Our Today by William Fowler
Weidenfeld & Nicolson, £20
IN 1942 Adolf Hitler’s Japanese allies were rampaging across south-east Asia. Hong Kong had been captured, Malaya overrun and the surrender of Singapore was a humiliation without parallel in the modern history of the British Army. The battleships Repulse and Prince of Wales had been sunk by enemy aircraft and the shadow of the rising sun was spreading across land and sea to threaten Australia.
Beethoven – Fidelio: Anja Kampe/Torsetn Kerl/Henry Waddington/Glyndebourne Festival Opera/Mark Elder
Glyndebourne
FIDELIO is ideally suited to be enjoyed in recorded performances – to be heard rather than seen. I know it may be breaking ranks to say this sort of thing, but I have seldom enjoyed it as a visual spectacle. This sounds like an attack on all that’s sacred – because, musically speaking, this is a 100 per cent politically correct opera. It’s Beethoven, for a start. It’s about liberty, freedom and human rights. And it shows that a woman is just as good as a man – in fact, rather better, because Florestan has got himself into a considerable spot of bother and his girlfriend has to go to considerable trouble to fish him out of it.
Dancing at Lughnasa
Old Vic, London
THEY have transformed the Old Vic and now you can see the front room of the Mundy family in the round. Add a sturdy tree, sundry farm items and sods of grass, and pre-Second World War Donegal is recreated in a revival of Dancing at Lughnasa, Brian Friel’s 1990 play about continuity and change.
DURING this week’s Prime Minister’s Questions, Michael Martin intervened to rebuke David Cameron after the Tory leader called the Prime Minister “a complete phoney”. It would also have been unparliamentary language for the Speaker to point out to “Call me Dave” that it takes one to know one. Similarly, Mr Cameron is right that there [...]
AS PAUL ANDERSON points out on page 11 this week, Chris Mullin’s diaries are an excellent, enlightening and thoroughly entertaining read. And copies can be ordered from Tribune (see the back page). There is just one small thing that grates. The Sunderland South Labour MP and former Tribune editor persistently refers to ex- Prime Minister [...]
Priorities the G20 should adopt when it convenes for its crucial London gathering to navigate a path out of the global economic crisis
GORDON BROWN says he wants to build 100,000 council houses. That’s not enough, but it’s a start and a good idea. Why did it take so long to surface?
THERE is a determined effort by some on the hard right of the party to re-write history and claim that Labour performed worse in last year’s London mayoral election than it did in the local elections throughout the rest of the country.