The Art Of Coldness

Last week I went to artist Nasser Azam's studio in London for The National. It was near Ottolenghi's shop, but that is a (delicious) aside. Anyway, Nasser is the artist who has painted in zero gravity, and now Antarctica. It was fascinating spending time with him, and it made me realise I really want to buy some art that isn't from Ikea but doesn't cost thousands of pounds. But where to begin?

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Arts & Life
23 Mar 2010

Tall Stories

The Wire boxset is mothballed for now, as this is my slightly intimidating current reading list. I'm looking forward to all of them in different ways, but at this rate I won't have time to read Grow Your Own Veg, let alone grow any.

I'm currently (well, obviously not currently) knee-deep in Richard Powers' Generosity. It's proving light relief after the dark melancholy of reading two parts of David Peace's Tokyo crime trilogy back-to-back, which I very much enjoyed but made me feel the need for a bath every time I finished a chapter. I was reading them in prep for an interview with Peace, which I admit to being slightly intimidated by (as you would speaking to anyone who has revelled in so much murder). But Peace was such an engaging, interesting man - and just as appalled by his subject matter as me, it seemed.

Anyway, back to Powers. He's much more of a straight thriller writer than Peace, but with a twist in that he's interested in science and technology. So interested in fact, that he dictates his novels to speech recognition software rather than writes them. Generosity is by no means a literary thriller but it does revel in ideas - it's about finding a gene for happiness and what that might mean for the world.

Talking of happiness, I was really pleased to see my interview with Colm Toibin in The National today. Brooklyn was my favourite novel of last year and it was great to see it win the Costa Novel award. You can read the piece as it was printed, below.

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The Review
15 Jan 2010

An afternoon with Jarvis

Back from London/Bath/Swindon now, and what a fantastic few days it was too. I spent an afternoon in a freezing old warehouse watching Jarvis Make An Exhibition Of Himself - which involved pole dancing - for The National (see below). I played Wii Sports Resort until ungodly hours. I renewed a love for 808 State's ex:el after happening across it in my brother's CD collection. I spent a lovely hour with Samantha Harvey in Bath talking about her beautiful book The Wilderness - and then ended up wandering around my old haunts. I completely agree with Jonathan Glancey about the mock Georgian streets they've dropped onto the admittedly knackered old bus station. And finally, I landed in another old haunt - Swindon! - for the Johnstone's Paint Trophy Area Quarter Final. Blimey, what a rubbish game. But it didn't matter, we are the famous Norwich City and we're going to Wemberleee (maybe... the JPT site had Swindon winning. There wasn't that much fog...).

Anyway, hope some of you enjoy the Jarvis piece. It was a very bizarre afternoon...

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Uncommon man

Arts & Life
11 Nov 2009

A deserted, half-derelict side street on the fringes of the City of London at lunchtime. The kind of unremarkable road people pass by every day without a second glance. But today, there’s something different in the air. There’s music coming from behind...read more...

Tech Tags: Arts & Life newspaper Front Page

Ok, this was just a test, right?

Yes, I know, I'm shamelessly self-promoting here. But I just wanted to see if it worked (you can publish on your blog from The National website direct, one click, without any html nonsense). And it clearly does. So next time I do a really long boring piece which is impenetrable online, I'll can link to the actual, more readable, paper view. Bet you can't wait, eh?

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Arts & Life
04 Nov 2009