Archive for April, 2009

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THEATRE: Decency, disgust, cruelty, crudity and a great comedy

By Tribune Web Editor /Wednesday, April 22nd, 2009

Edward Gant’s Amazing Feats of Loneliness
Soho Theatre, London

MOST creative artists are sensitive to the spirit of the times – the best seem to anticipate the future. What they feel today will be reality tomorrow. Take the case of playwright Anthony Neilson. In about 2001, he wrote Edward Gant’s Amazing Feats of Loneliness, a show which stages the tension between literal meaning and metaphorical meaning. And guess what? Some five years later, this was – and still is – a hot topic on blogs and in discussions.

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BOOKS: Why greed isn’t good

By Tribune Web Editor /Wednesday, April 22nd, 2009

Meltdown: The End of the Age of Greed
by Paul Mason
Verso, £7.99

IF THERE is one boom caused by the global financial bust then it’s in books telling us how it all happened. Paul Mason, Newsnight’s (relatively) new economics editor, got to cover the biggest economics story of the last 70 years and could hardly believe what he was reporting. The one constant through the breathless prose is the sound of his jaw dropping as another low is breached.

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BOOKS: Diving in deep end for people’s pools

By Tribune Web Editor /Wednesday, April 22nd, 2009

Great Lengths: The Historic Indoor Swimming Pools of Britain
by Dr Ian Gordon and Simon Inglis
English Heritage, £19.99

SWIMMING pools have always had the whiff of elitism about them, what with the new millionaire usually choosing to immediately build a tasteful pool in the shape of a guitar or a dollar bill. Some even build two pools; in case one is broken. But there is another history – that of the people’s pools – and this book is dedicated to the echoing shrieks of schoolchildren, the bracing odour of chlorine and those monuments to civic pride that are the public swimming pools of Britain.

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By Tribune Web Editor /Tuesday, April 21st, 2009

“MULLIN banned.” That would be good for even more publicity for the former Tribune editor’s new book. But it’s not quite that good. Chris Mullin is due to give a talk about his diary A View From the Foothills (see the  special offer on page 2) at next month’s Readers and Writers festival, sponsored by [...]

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Hungary for change

By Tribune Web Editor /Tuesday, April 21st, 2009

Carl Rowlands says there is much cause to wish the so-called Hungarian Socialist Party an unhappy birthday

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Bad and far worse: a tale of two Irish downturns

By Tribune Web Editor /Tuesday, April 21st, 2009

The credit crunch has had quite different effects in Northern Ireland and the Republic, says John Coulter

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John Coulter: Only talk can stop the terror – and the clock is ticking

By Tribune Web Editor /Monday, April 20th, 2009

NO ONE in Ireland wants another 40 years of bloodshed. Now is the time for the Dail and Westminster governments to speak to those who represent dissident republicans – either directly or through backdoor channels. But they need to move fast. Ireland cannot endure another conflict. In the early 1970s, the British flew leading Provisionals to England for secret talks, but it was to be two decades before the Provos’ ceasefire in 1994.

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By Tribune Web Editor /Monday, April 20th, 2009

LAZY journalists and Google addicts beware: Margaret McDonagh, former Labour Party general secretary, is no relation, nor anything to do with Margaret McDonagh, author of The Italian Doctor’s Bride and other bonkbusters in Mills & Boon’s “Medical Romance” series. After all, when was the last time a Labour Party general secretary wrote any romantic fiction? [...]

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Numbers game is highly selective

By Tribune Web Editor /Monday, April 20th, 2009

Chris McLaughlin reports on mounting concerns that Labour’s parliamentary selections process is infected by a ‘creeping corruption’

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By Tribune Web Editor /Sunday, April 19th, 2009

Look who came to dinner. Much has been made of the fact that dopey Derek was a guest at Chequers shortly after plans for the aptly named Red Rag website were hatched. He and about 20 others, most of whom were journalists and broadcasters and their guests. Del Boy was, in fact, not specifically invited [...]