Charles Moore discussed his authorised biography of Margaret Thatcher at LSE on 25th April.
This eagearly anticipated authorised biography, Not For Turning, is a ‘notable landmark’ according to the FT (27th April).
And, yes, Charles Moore, said on Thursday that he Iron Lady ‘did actually care about society’!!!!
I watched Mies Julie written and directed by Yael Farber at Riverside Studios.
I still think that the strongest element of the play is not the new adaptation of classic Strindberg’s play, but its loose relation to the original play itself.
JULIE: oh, I am so tired. I can’t do anything; can’t repent, can’t run away, can’t stay, can’t live–can’t die!
Great play and a nice performance at The Print Room tonight. Mollie Sweeney by Brian Friel with Dorothy Duffy as Molly, Ruairi Conaghan as Frank and Stuart Graham as Mr Rice.
The trip from blindness to vision, from understanding to seeing, from experiencing to visualising is a long and not an easy one.
What do we expect to see and what do we expect to understand? A miracle operation succeeded in restoring Molly’s sight but failed to make her register with what she sees. It is not only Molly, who needs to be, it is Frank and Mr Rice who need to make sense of their damaged realities.
‘So the question she had to ask herself was: How much do I want to know this world? And am I prepared to make that enormous effort to get it?’
Last chance to visit Manet: Portraying Life at Royal Academy of Arts!
The truth is that our only obligation should be to distil what we can from our epoch, through without belittling what earlier periods have achieved. (Eduard Manet, 1878-79)
Ready to welcome the spring after a long winter…..with some thespian experience:
When I see a former student of mine taking such an initiative, acting collectively and materialising the whole idea about being a ‘political animal’I feel so proud!!!
Well done Nicholas Pullen!
China appears restless in systematising Internet censorship. The old story goes on…
Questions among -not only- Greeks these days:
Daniel Gros at Project Syndicate raises the point of the ‘sovereign debt’ vs. the ‘sovereignty of the people’.
The broader message from the Greek and French elections is that the attempt to impose a benevolent creditors’ dictatorship is now being met by a debtors’ revolt. Financial markets have reacted as strongly as they have because investors recognize that the “sovereign” in sovereign debt is an electorate that can simply decide not to pay.
This is already the case in Greece, but the fate of the euro will be decided in the larger, systemically important countries like Italy and Spain. Only determined action by their governments, supported by their citizens, will show that they merit unreserved support from the rest of the eurozone. At this point, nothing less can save the common currency.
An interesting discussion debate yesterday evening at BISC. Me and two colleagues tried to define the reasons behind the rise of the Far Right in Europe today and to identify common principles among the European far right movements/parties/groups.
Interesting questions that were raised (not necessarily followed by answers though). I have to further think about the following and more…
….and many others……and last but not least
Is the present European crisis providing the greatest devices for the development of the Far Right’s tactics and strategies?
Our discussion goes on…
