Tribune – Comment, news and reviews from Britain's democratic left

IN THE 20 or more years since Hay-on-Wye launched the little Welsh’s town’s annual spirits raising festival, the small band of brothers and sisters has expanded to become an army of enthusiasts rooting for some of the enjoyable celebrations on offer. The word “Literary” no longer appears between the words “Hay” and “Festival”. And for good reason. While the best in the written word continues to hold centre stage, music, performance, comedy, dance and art all mix in smoothly. No wonder festival helmsman Peter Florence declares: “Every evening we’ll laugh and dance with musical entertainers.”

The Secret Life of War: Journeys Through Modern Conflict by Peter Beaumont
Harvill Secker, £16.99

PETER BEAUMONT nearly killed himself writing this book. That is not an attempt at a put-down; it expresses my admiration for a winner of a George Orwell Prize for Journalism and a man, therefore, with a close kinship with members of the Tribune family. He was also a colleague of mine for six years on The Observer, where I saw him so committed to the reporting of wars that it threatened his own sanity as he observed the murderous antics of his fellow-human beings, from Iraq to Lebanon and from Afghanistan to Angola.

ERNEST MANDEL, the Trotskyist intellectual whose seminal work, Late Capitalism, influenced a generation on the left, had an enthusiasm for crime stories matched only by Labour’s inter-war pairing of GDH and Margaret Cole. They wrote crime stories while Mandel analysed their consumption. His book Delightful Murder: A Social History of the Crime Story, long out of print, reveals that Bukharin was also a fan and makes the point that revolutionaries don’t lose their zeal by engrossing themselves in the literary battle between establishment and rebel, inevitably concluded with the bourgeoisie triumphant, even if on occasion there is a twist.

San Martín: Argentine Soldier, American Hero by John Lynch
Yale University Press, £25

AS THE Hugo Chávez-inspired Bolívarian revolution continues to sweep across the frontiers of Latin America, the English-speaking world is becoming ever more familiar with that great liberator Simón Bolívar. But we are still rather less knowledgeable about another key revolutionary hero of independence, the hombre necesario or “indispensable one”, José Francisco de San Martín. Now John Lynch in this timely book on San Martín delivers a rich portrait of the man and his place in the history of Latin America.

Baroque: Style in the Age of Magnificence
Victoria and Albert Museum, London

EXCESS, opulence and grandeur are just some of the descriptions associated with the visual style known as Baroque, although other adjectives – such as wealth, ostentation and indulgence – may also come to mind. It was a style of spectacle, consciously intended to impress, which continued throughout much of the 17th and 18th centuries until replaced by the cooler, quieter, more austere neo-classicism. Baroque extended to most art forms, including the visual arts, architecture, theatre and music, reflecting the increasing wealth of the growing European economies, eager to display art that captured the expansive spirit of the times.

Movie Speak: How to Talk Like You Belong on a Film Set by Tony Bill
Workman, £6.99

COME on, admit it! You want to be a star. You’re desperate to eat at The Ivy – and not pick up the bill. Or simply be an icon. Or both. In this stupefying and never ending age of mindless celebrity, it is your rightful place to join Jordan and Will Young on the red carpet.

Robert Giddings, who was Professor of Communication and Culture at Bournemouth University, is a broadcaster and literary critic who writes regularly for Tribune reviewing radio programmes, classical music and books. An expert on the life and work of Charles Dickens, and editor of a new edition of Bleak House (Atlantic Books, £8.99) he reflects here on Dickens and Honourable Members in the light of the current scandal of MPs caught with their snouts in the trough.

Star Trek
US 2009

Little Ashes
UK/Spain 2008

STAR Trek the re-imagined motion picture strikes sparks from its young and mostly unknown cast filling the V-insignia sweaters vacated by William Shatner, DeForrest Kelley, James Doohan et al. Only Leonard Nimoy as the Vulcan purveyor of logic, Mr Spock, returns, passing the catchphrases “Fascinating” and “Live long and proper” on to his successor, Heroes star, Zachary Quinto.

Horizon: How Violent Are You?
BBC 2

The Incredible Human Journey
BBC 2

I FIND Michael Portillo quite intriguing. He seems to be more riddled than most with contradictions. There’s the former Thatcherite firebrand who gave up politics (for now anyway) without turning a hair; the shy and laidback individual who threw a vast, ego-boosting party in Alexandra Palace and who pops up in the press and on television at every turn; the dignified political commentator who seems to relish taking part in embarrassing reality TV. Those who remember his spell as Tory Defence Secretary would certainly have boggled to hear him describe himself as a “pacifist” at the start of Horizon: How Violent Are You? “I don’t have an aggressive bone in my body”, he assured us. “I’ve never hit anyone or been in a fight in my life.” It seems he was brought up to resolve all conflicts peacefully, cannot bear to watch boxing or wrestling and is (or was) mystified as to the causes of “extreme acts of violence”.

Picasso: Challenging the Past
National Gallery, London

LIKE a cubist painting, which ever way you look, Picasso somehow avoids being pinned down. Yet, no matter how much he moved from one style to another – from academic study to free play, from precision to wild experiment – Picasso consistently referred to the great art of the past as both a source of inspiration and as way of viewing the world.