http://www.jeanettewinterson.com//journalism.asp Jeanette Winterson en-uk Copyright 2008 Jeanette Winterson Thu, 4 Dec 2008 4:28:45 GMT As this is going to be a Homemade Christmas we had better start this afternoon. My advice for the weekends leading up to the Great Event is to begin with a stash of audio books to entertain your ears while your hands are nimbly at it with sellotape and scissors, pastry cutters and kegs of mince-meat. journalism_01_item.asp?journalism_01ID=234 Sat, 29 Nov 2008 -1:00:00 GMT The Times Language is what stops the heart exploding. Or as Eliot puts it in Murder in the Cathedral, 'This is one moment/ But know that another/ shall pierce you with a sudden painful joy.' journalism_01_item.asp?journalism_01ID=233 Sat, 15 Nov 2008 -1:00:00 GMT The Guardian I was in the electrical shop in Stow on the Wold when I heard a man behind me say, 'I've just popped in with my Goblin.' I didn't look round because what I wanted to see was a cross creature, three feet tall, chewing the lampshades and pinging the toasters. I know he was really a vacuum cleaner, but it set me thinking about fairy stories, especially as our current global crisis reads like a demented version of The Emperor's New Clothes mated with The Fisherman and the Flounder. journalism_01_item.asp?journalism_01ID=229 Mon, 20 Oct 2008 -1:00:00 GMT The Times My favourite anecdote of a writer's life - mine - is the one about the old boy who runs the allotments up the road, who took a look at my new Landrover, and shook his head, and said, 'So you got that by doing writing?' Any readers out there inspired by the heady combination of this week's Cheltenham Festival issue, and the chance to buy a Four x Four from the proceeds of their pen, might be interested in the new idea from the Faber publishing house - The Faber Academy. journalism_01_item.asp?journalism_01ID=230 Sat, 4 Oct 2008 -1:00:00 GMT The Times This week is jam making week. I don't like making jam but I like eating it. The Cotswold hedges are black with berries, so some good has come out of the rain. Sunday belongs to my god-children, three buckets, and a skull and cross-bones sign. journalism_01_item.asp?journalism_01ID=225 Thu, 25 Sep 2008 -1:00:00 GMT Country Life This moanin I downlowded mI e-buk witch woz Grate Expektashuns, but I culdnt unnnerstan the Inglish. journalism_01_item.asp?journalism_01ID=228 Sat, 20 Sep 2008 -1:00:00 GMT The Times : Books In between those two words - love, loss, and standing on either side of them, is how all this happened in the first place: Another word: Desire. journalism_01_item.asp?journalism_01ID=226 Thu, 11 Sep 2008 -1:00:00 GMT The Independent I was in Paris last week for my birthday, and the Rentree was just beginning to happen; the sand was swept up from the banks of the Seine, and the little artisan boulangeries were baking again. journalism_01_item.asp?journalism_01ID=227 Sat, 6 Sep 2008 -1:00:00 GMT The Times : Books Readers of my previous column will know that I managed to boil my mobile phone thanks to an excess of Right Brain activity brought about by immersing myself in writing a book. Since that unfortunate event, I moved over into Left Brain for long enough to buy a new phone, possibly quite a male phone, if phones play to gender, and I have become fascinated - and horrified - by the Text Templates. Is this how we live, love, and use language now? journalism_01_item.asp?journalism_01ID=222 Sun, 24 Aug 2008 -1:00:00 GMT The Times I am not an absent-minded person, and certainly not like Wittgenstein who had to summon his friends to help him fasten his braces - he couldn't match the loops to his trouser buttons, and if left to dress unaided, went forth into Cambridge in a twisted tweedy mass of clown clothes. journalism_01_item.asp?journalism_01ID=223 Sun, 10 Aug 2008 -1:00:00 GMT The Times Summertime make me happy. Rain, sun, wind, what does it matter, as long as the geraniums are on the back step and the peas and beans are growing in the garden? journalism_01_item.asp?journalism_01ID=218 Sun, 3 Aug 2008 -1:00:00 GMT Observer Summertime makes me happy. Rain, sun, wind, what does it matter, as long as the geraniums are on the back step and the peas and beans are growing in the garden? journalism_01_item.asp?journalism_01ID=224 Sat, 2 Aug 2008 -1:00:00 GMT Observer English summers make me feel sentimental and bucolic. There is something very Famous Five about cycling along country lanes with a bottle of lemonade and a ham sandwich, and of course, the right book in your knapsack. journalism_01_item.asp?journalism_01ID=217 Sat, 26 Jul 2008 -1:00:00 GMT The Times : Books As I live in my own private Garden of Eden, with animals who come at my call, I am a reluctant holiday-maker, though I love that quaint English phrase, with its whiff of Tilly lamps and outdoor bacon. journalism_01_item.asp?journalism_01ID=221 Sat, 12 Jul 2008 -1:00:00 GMT The Times : Books Eighty years ago, in 1928, two novels were published. One is a delight, the other is a kind of torture. One is a splendid work of art, the other is badly written social realism of a most peculiar kind. journalism_01_item.asp?journalism_01ID=216 Sat, 28 Jun 2008 -1:00:00 GMT The Times : Books Last week I was invited backstage in the British Library to look at some of the books and manuscripts. Everything you would want to see is there; Coleridge's notebooks - small, squat leather bound volumes, water stained from all that walking favoured by the Romantic poets, and filled with spidery handwriting on beauty and imagination. journalism_01_item.asp?journalism_01ID=220 Sun, 15 Jun 2008 -1:00:00 GMT The Times It's that book festival time of year again, when readers abandon their armchairs for the tent. Times Online will give you the Thirty Best Book Festivals in the UK, and if that is not enough, Europe is hosting festivals almost weekly - just google and go. journalism_01_item.asp?journalism_01ID=212 Sat, 31 May 2008 -1:00:00 GMT The Times : Books I took my oldest friend, recently bereaved of a sister, to see The Year of Magical Thinking at the National Theatre. Based on the book of the same name by Joan Didion, and performed as a monologue by Vanessa Regrave, I wondered if the bestseller on loss, death, denial, grief and coping, would help my friend, and just as importantly open up new territory for our conversations. journalism_01_item.asp?journalism_01ID=213 Sat, 17 May 2008 -1:00:00 GMT The Times One of Mrs Winterson's objections to literature was that 'the trouble with a book is that you never know what's in it until it's too late.' To extract the full flavour of this dire warning, 'book' must rhyme with 'spook' and be allowed four extra'Os'. When I challenged her with own taste in murder mysteries, she replied, 'If you know there's a body coming, it's not so much of a shock.' journalism_01_item.asp?journalism_01ID=214 Sat, 19 Apr 2008 -1:00:00 GMT The Times There's a story in St Augustine's Confessions of how St Ambrose, Bishop of Milan, started the fashion for reading silently - without moving his lips - which was a pretty radical thing to do in the days when everything worth reading was intended to be read out loud. journalism_01_item.asp?journalism_01ID=208 Wed, 2 Apr 2008 -1:00:00 GMT The Times : Books A friend of mine had a terrible dream where she was marooned on an island and menaced by penguins, pelicans and too-big ladybirds. Fortunately, she had a good Jungian analyst who pointed out that these oppressive creatures were all books. journalism_01_item.asp?journalism_01ID=209 Wed, 2 Apr 2008 -1:00:00 GMT The Times : Books I have just returned from the States, where the Writers Guild of America strike, that began on November 5th, has wiped out quite a lot of awful TV shows. This is a relief, and not just for a TV-phobic Englishwoman like myself; journalism_01_item.asp?journalism_01ID=14 Fri, 1 Feb 2008 -1:00:00 GMT The Times : Books At the start of every new year, I lug a load of unwanted books to the charity shop, so that I can fill up the spaces on the shelves with new possibilities. journalism_01_item.asp?journalism_01ID=21 Fri, 1 Feb 2008 -1:00:00 GMT The Times : Books Picture this. I am staying in a remote cottage in Cornwall without a car. I have a temperature of 102, spots on my throat, delirium, and a book to finish. My desperate publisher suggests I call Hilary Fairclough, a homeopath who has a practise in London and Penzance. She sends round a remedy called Lachesis, made from snake venom. Four hours later I have no symptoms whatsoever. journalism_01_item.asp?journalism_01ID=16 Sat, 1 Dec 2007 -1:00:00 GMT The Guardian It is impossible to begin at the beginning. Any scientist can tell you what happened in the first three seconds after the Big Bang, but none can say for sure what happened in the three seconds previous. journalism_01_item.asp?journalism_01ID=26 Sat, 1 Dec 2007 -1:00:00 GMT The Guardian Next Thursday Sotheby's will auction a manuscript of 160 pages called The Tales of Beedle the Bard. The catalogue copy says Property of JK Rowling, handwritten and extensively illustrated by the author. The estimate is £30,000-50,000. journalism_01_item.asp?journalism_01ID=29 Sat, 1 Dec 2007 -1:00:00 GMT The Times : Books This week I have been exercising my awful French by trying to read Andre Gide, Prometheus Mis-bound. At one moment Prometheus says, 'Il faut avoir un aigle'. journalism_01_item.asp?journalism_01ID=30 Sat, 1 Dec 2007 -1:00:00 GMT The Times : Books The other day I was walking down the street when a lady hailed me from the other side, 'Hey, are you famous?' 'No' I replied. 'Oh. OK,' she said 'So where's the Post Office?' journalism_01_item.asp?journalism_01ID=31 Sat, 1 Dec 2007 -1:00:00 GMT The Times : Books A friend of mine has just moved to an apartment in London's Canary Wharf. Her rather unlikely address is King Frederick 1X Tower. While waiting for a delivery, the phone rang, and a heavily accented voice declared that her bed could not be delivered because there was no such place as King Frederick the Icks Tower. journalism_01_item.asp?journalism_01ID=32 Sat, 1 Dec 2007 -1:00:00 GMT The Times : Books Thinking about creativity is not something I do very often, because I would rather spend the time actually making something; a new book, tonight's dinner, a pond in the garden, a flower arrangement from hedgerow offerings or a space in my mind - what the Greeks called 'temenos'; a virtual space where real things can happen. journalism_01_item.asp?journalism_01ID=33 Sat, 1 Dec 2007 -1:00:00 GMT The Times : Books I have lived on the Thames twice - once in London in a warehouse on Shad Thames, before that place had any of its elegant or edible associations. There were no restaurants and no apartments, only the river, from which, at various times, I hauled Roman tessera and Elizabethan clay pipes. My second river-run was in Oxfordshire, on the tributary the Windrush, abundant with delicious but scary foreign crayfish, chucked in and left to multiply, so the story goes, by a careless chef, somewhere near Bray. journalism_01_item.asp?journalism_01ID=176 Sat, 1 Dec 2007 -1:00:00 GMT Other Articles In Latin, the word luxuria connotes vicious indulgence. The OED defines luxury as something which is desirable but not indispensable. Dr Johnson, in his usual blunt way calls luxury in plants, 'exuberance', and in people, 'addiction to pleasure.' journalism_01_item.asp?journalism_01ID=34 Mon, 1 Oct 2007 -1:00:00 GMT The Times : Books Travelling by train this week I saw the following notice: Please Take Care When Alighting the Train. It is true that setting fire to locomotives can prove hazardous to health, but should we be providing safety advice to arsonists? journalism_01_item.asp?journalism_01ID=35 Mon, 1 Oct 2007 -1:00:00 GMT The Times : Books Travelling by train this week I saw the following notice: Please Take Care When Alighting the Train. It is true that setting fire to locomotives can prove hazardous to health, but should we be providing safety advice to arsonists? journalism_01_item.asp?journalism_01ID=36 Sat, 1 Sep 2007 -1:00:00 GMT The Times : Books London is an old city, and no part of it is without a secret history. To me, there's no better sport than walking for a couple of hours in a particular district, and trying to read the past, which usually means reading between the lines, and avoiding the shiny new narrative of progress. journalism_01_item.asp?journalism_01ID=37 Sat, 1 Sep 2007 -1:00:00 GMT The Times : Books Last night I ran from the BBC Newsnight studio to join my god-child Eleanor in the Harry Potter queue. I was thinking of all those pilgrims at Lourdes. Just occasionally, since the matter of the water into wine, it has been possible to work a miracle on demand; that is what bookshops across the world were doing last night at midnight. It may only be a small miracle, but this morning adults everywhere can safely sit over the breakfast table, feasting on croissants and kippers, knowing there will be no cries to go swimming/dancing/riding/shopping, or 'I'm bored.' journalism_01_item.asp?journalism_01ID=38 Wed, 1 Aug 2007 -1:00:00 GMT The Times : Books Hooray! No more red lines in the sand, blue sky thinking, hearts and minds, your call, y'know... Tony Blair has gone, and taken with him the worn out clichés and the Bee Gee-style lyrics, sorry, plain down-to earth sort of a guy appeals to 'the people'. Let's hope his dead language will evaporate with him into the noisome urban chic of Cool Britannia. journalism_01_item.asp?journalism_01ID=39 Wed, 1 Aug 2007 -1:00:00 GMT The Times : Books This week Tony Blair made a speech about the irresponsibility of the media - citing in particular the Independent newspaper. The media, he said, could no longer distinguish between fact and fiction (this from a man who gave us WMM missiling the UK in 45mins). The media, he said, elided opinion with fact, were, in effect, faulty transmitters. journalism_01_item.asp?journalism_01ID=40 Sun, 1 Jul 2007 -1:00:00 GMT The Times : Books 'When in doubt prefer genius.' That was critic Cyril Connolly's guiding principle in his 1965 publication The Modern Movement - 100 Key Books from England, France and America 1880-1950. journalism_01_item.asp?journalism_01ID=41 Sun, 1 Jul 2007 -1:00:00 GMT The Times : Books This is the city of mazes. You may set off from the same place to the same place every day and never go by the same route. journalism_01_item.asp?journalism_01ID=42 Fri, 1 Jun 2007 -1:00:00 GMT The Times : Books Some of you will be reading this on the train down to Lewes today for the opening of the Glyndebourne 2007 season, with Verdi's opera of Macbeth, directed by Richard Jones. In his staging, Banquo's head follows Macbeth wherever he goes, which seems to me to be suitably analogous to the power-driven war in Iraq, which will surely dog Mr Blair for the rest of his life. journalism_01_item.asp?journalism_01ID=43 Fri, 1 Jun 2007 -1:00:00 GMT The Times : Books Last year my column fell on Easter Saturday, and this year it has done so again. According to the rule, Easter is observed on the first Sunday after the full moon which happens on or next after March 21st. journalism_01_item.asp?journalism_01ID=44 Fri, 1 Jun 2007 -1:00:00 GMT The Times : Books Just recently two funerals of very different kinds have set me thinking about language; the first was a Quaker cremation followed by a Remembrance service in the Meeting House, and the second was an Evangelical burial. journalism_01_item.asp?journalism_01ID=45 Fri, 1 Jun 2007 -1:00:00 GMT The Times : Books This is a column about books, not politics, but when books are threatened by politics, there is good reason to speak out. journalism_01_item.asp?journalism_01ID=46 Thu, 1 Mar 2007 -1:00:00 GMT The Times : Books Wherever human beings live their own lives, instead of somebody else's, stories form in their hearts and their heads. journalism_01_item.asp?journalism_01ID=47 Thu, 1 Feb 2007 -1:00:00 GMT The Times : Books January is a good month for poetry prizes. Last Monday, Alice Oswald won the Geoffrey Faber Memorial Prize for her third collection, Woods etc. Next week, the TS Eliot Prize will be chosen from a shortlist of ten, which strangely does not include either Alice Oswald, or Don Paterson, both previous winners. journalism_01_item.asp?journalism_01ID=48 Thu, 1 Feb 2007 -1:00:00 GMT The Times : Books The Christmas Story is very strange. I decided to read it again, and just concentrate on the text, without any agenda or ideology, noting of course, that the two accounts, in the Gospels of Matthew and Luke, are different because the Evangelists have particular concerns; Matthew, for his Gentile readers, and Luke for the marginalised and the outcast. So Matthew has the Three Wise Men, who are not Jews, but who are summoned by the Star, and Luke has no Wise Men, but plenty of shepherds; the local underclass who are visited by their own angel. journalism_01_item.asp?journalism_01ID=49 Mon, 1 Jan 2007 -1:00:00 GMT The Times : Books This is the Christmas books issue. Let's celebrate all the things we love to read, and all the things we read and fall in love with. journalism_01_item.asp?journalism_01ID=73 Fri, 1 Dec 2006 -1:00:00 GMT The Times : Books Lewis Hyde's remarkable book, The Gift: How the Creative Spirit Transforms the World, is a timely reminder that although we live in a commodity culture, not everything is for sale, and not everything has a price. Yes, artists, sell their work, but that is not its purpose, nor its point. Art, as Hyde tells us, gives us images by which to imagine our lives. Inside every genuine work of art, great or small, is a gift that is also an exchange; a cross-current of energy from the artist into the imaginative life of the person receiving what is given. journalism_01_item.asp?journalism_01ID=50 Wed, 1 Nov 2006 -1:00:00 GMT The Times : Books If you are looking for a book to shove in your pocket and read secretly when no one is looking, then get a copy of Tove Jansson's The Winter Book. journalism_01_item.asp?journalism_01ID=51 Wed, 1 Nov 2006 -1:00:00 GMT The Times : Books It's a long time since I heard tap-water called 'corporation pop'. When I was growing up in Accrington in the 1960's, that's what kids were given to take on a picnic, along with jam buttys, all in a bag, and called 'bait.' journalism_01_item.asp?journalism_01ID=52 Sun, 1 Oct 2006 -1:00:00 GMT The Times : Books I am always a little bit surprised to be eating Bronte biscuits on the train to Leeds; Shakespeare Sponge Fingers have not yet materialised in the shops of Stratford, but perhaps it is only a matter of time, and 'materialise' is the right word. journalism_01_item.asp?journalism_01ID=53 Sun, 1 Oct 2006 -1:00:00 GMT The Times : Books Arguments that begin, But is it art? miss the point. The point is that Tracey Emin has done more for public awareness of art, both as a force in its own right, and as a necessary part of life, than any other living artist. journalism_01_item.asp?journalism_01ID=20 Sun, 1 Oct 2006 -1:00:00 GMT Visual Arts Going back to school for me began with a series of block printed cards made by Mrs Winterson to hand out to classmates. As far as I am concerned, September starts with the book of Jeremiah: The summer is ended and we are not yet saved. journalism_01_item.asp?journalism_01ID=54 Fri, 1 Sep 2006 -1:00:00 GMT The Times : Books 'Knowing that I loved my books', says Prospero, talking of his flight from Milan with only his daughter and his library. journalism_01_item.asp?journalism_01ID=55 Fri, 1 Sep 2006 -1:00:00 GMT The Times : Books What kind of travel books will you be taking on holiday with you this year? I was in my local bookshop last week, feeling overwhelmed at the number of bibles and guides, each promising to tell me everything I needed to know about everywhere, from New York City to Easter Island. journalism_01_item.asp?journalism_01ID=56 Tue, 1 Aug 2006 -1:00:00 GMT The Times : Books I have given up collecting signed first editions of books I love, unless I can buy them straight away, just published. So it is wonderful to have inscribed copies of Ali Smith's The Accidental, and Seamus Heaney's District and Circle, but less wonderful to have to find between 70,000 and 90,000 pounds for a signed Virginia Woolf. journalism_01_item.asp?journalism_01ID=57 Tue, 1 Aug 2006 -1:00:00 GMT The Times : Books When I was growing up in awful Accrington in the 1960's - well, it said on the calendar it was the 1960's, but nothing about the 60's penetrated Mrs Winterson's black-out curtains, or flavoured her war-time cooking. journalism_01_item.asp?journalism_01ID=58 Tue, 1 Aug 2006 -1:00:00 GMT The Times : Books We have just passed the longest day - the summer solstice, when, as the Latin root tells us, the sun (sol), stands still in the heavens. At least it seems to do so, which is why the ancients celebrated June 21st as the high point of the year. journalism_01_item.asp?journalism_01ID=59 Sat, 1 Jul 2006 -1:00:00 GMT The Times : Books My earlier column on damp squids and holly reefs and other howling etymologies, seems to have delighted Times readers enough to send in stacks of your own. In the way of things I was also bereted by two readers, indeed made into something of an escaped goat, for being sufficiently unfamiliar with the English language to imagine there was such a thing as a damp squid. journalism_01_item.asp?journalism_01ID=60 Sat, 1 Jul 2006 -1:00:00 GMT The Times : Books Whenever I think of Damien Hirst, I find myself sinking into the sticky, corrupt, glittering world of Webster's Duchess of Malfi. journalism_01_item.asp?journalism_01ID=61 Sat, 1 Jul 2006 -1:00:00 GMT The Times : Books The other day my elderly country neighbour asked for a bit of help to get his new washing machine into the kitchen. That generation never use 'it', always, 'he' or 'she', so I wasn't surprised to hear the washing machine called 'he', but I was surprised by what followed: 'My old washing machine, he's given up the goat,' he said, in a broad Gloucestershire accent. journalism_01_item.asp?journalism_01ID=62 Sat, 1 Jul 2006 -1:00:00 GMT The Times : Books Glyndebourne is more than a night at the opera; it is music for the rest of your life. Forget fancy. Forget toffs. Forget silk bow-ties and Jimmy Choos; you'll want to wear those anyway, probably in the same outfit, but if you prefer Goth leather or something you sewed for yourself the night before, you won't be made to feel out of place. journalism_01_item.asp?journalism_01ID=178 Sat, 1 Jul 2006 -1:00:00 GMT Other Articles As it is Easter Saturday, I thought I would have a look at the Bible story of Christ's crucifixion. I think it is best read as a cruci-fiction, not because it is either literally true or untrue, but because it's value lies in its power as a text. journalism_01_item.asp?journalism_01ID=63 Mon, 1 May 2006 -1:00:00 GMT The Times : Books As the row over plagiarism and the Dan Brown's Da Vinci code hits the courts this week, readers might be forgiven for thinking that writers are only interested in money and in themselves. journalism_01_item.asp?journalism_01ID=64 Sat, 1 Apr 2006 -1:00:00 GMT The Times : Books It's Saturday, and my Irish plumber has just emerged from his St Patrick's Day lock-in. This annual event is more than floating your own body weight in Guinness; it is a cultural and literary extravaganza that embraces anyone who is Irish, or who can persuade the fairies that he or she is Irish. journalism_01_item.asp?journalism_01ID=65 Sat, 1 Apr 2006 -1:00:00 GMT The Times : Books Google Hercules and you will score 11,400,000 hits. The Greek hero, famous for his Labours and his love-life, has produced plenty of off-spring: Helicopters, condoms, gay nightclubs, plumbing, (maybe something to do with his bright idea to divert a river to clean out the world's filthiest stables). The City of Hercules is in the San Francisco Bay Area. The Hercules Galaxies, mysterious island universes, lie 650 million light years away. journalism_01_item.asp?journalism_01ID=27 Sat, 1 Apr 2006 -1:00:00 GMT The Guardian It's a creative moment in itself, bringing Lisa Lou to White Cube in Hoxton. In 1875, a young orphanage lad, a road sweeper and rat catcher turned barrow boy, noticed how London's East End Costermongers, in old Spitalfields Market, decorated the seams of their jackets and trousers with pearly buttons. These flash boys, in their 'flash boy suits', as they called them, wanted to stand out from their pyramids of fruit and veg. The young boy got excited by these self-made peacocks, and he took a whole suit and hat and sewed the lot with buttons, sequins and beads. Every surface inch was beaded. The Pearly King was born. journalism_01_item.asp?journalism_01ID=157 Sat, 1 Apr 2006 -1:00:00 GMT Visual Arts In June 1764, Horace Walpole dreamed that he was in the hall of an ancient castle, and on the topmost banister of the staircase saw a gigantic hand in armour. When he woke up he wrote the first horror story, The Castle Of Otranto. journalism_01_item.asp?journalism_01ID=66 Wed, 1 Mar 2006 -1:00:00 GMT The Times : Books The news this week that university libraries want to pulp books and journals and establish a centralised archive for research, seems to have attracted its polar opposite in the just opened V&A exhibition of the world's first hand-written illuminated manuscript in 500 years. journalism_01_item.asp?journalism_01ID=67 Wed, 1 Mar 2006 -1:00:00 GMT The Times : Books My recent reservations about the ReaditSwapit site, where readers can swap books they have read for ones they have not read, has been interpreted by its founder as my behind-the times terror of the Internet. I do not think he has visited my website. journalism_01_item.asp?journalism_01ID=68 Wed, 1 Feb 2006 -1:00:00 GMT The Times : Books My new year always begins with a clear-out, including books. I love books, but not as wall coverings. The ones I know I will never read again go to Oxfam. journalism_01_item.asp?journalism_01ID=69 Wed, 1 Feb 2006 -1:00:00 GMT The Times : Books As this is the chestnuts and crackers Dickens issue, I decided to write this column from my shop in Spitalfields, London. journalism_01_item.asp?journalism_01ID=70 Sun, 1 Jan 2006 -1:00:00 GMT The Times : Books I go to poetry the way some people grab an espresso; for an energy shot, a hit of warmth, and to clear my head. journalism_01_item.asp?journalism_01ID=71 Thu, 1 Dec 2005 -1:00:00 GMT The Times : Books As a travelling writer - which is a cross between a fortune teller and a brush salesman, I meet more people than most. They ask me about their marriages, confide in me their fears, invite me back for coffee, show me their manuscripts, speculate about the state of the world, and sometimes, when I am not adequately fulfilling either my exotic or my practical purpose, they are rude to me. journalism_01_item.asp?journalism_01ID=72 Thu, 1 Dec 2005 -1:00:00 GMT The Times : Books Tracey Emin has published her collection of personal writings, called STRANGELAND. This is not a review of that book, but a few questions about the questions raised by something so intimate, that is also a public declaration. journalism_01_item.asp?journalism_01ID=74 Tue, 1 Nov 2005 -1:00:00 GMT The Times : Books Oh the glamorous life of the travelling writer. I am writing this in Stockholm where I am hoping that I won't have to spend tonight on the floor of my bathroom, wrapped in a tangle of hotel bedding and towels, trying to find a place where there is neither traffic noise nor air conditioning. journalism_01_item.asp?journalism_01ID=75 Tue, 1 Nov 2005 -1:00:00 GMT The Times : Books Down in Spitalfields we are all very excited because Tracey Emin is publishing her new book of personal writings, STRANGELAND, this week. The swanky party is on Friday night, and Verdes is doing the food. journalism_01_item.asp?journalism_01ID=15 Tue, 1 Nov 2005 -1:00:00 GMT Evening Standard Now that it's half- term and London has shed its load of SUV's crammed with children of assorted sizes, a group of us down in Spitalfields has decided to start our own Walking is Best initiative. journalism_01_item.asp?journalism_01ID=23 Tue, 1 Nov 2005 -1:00:00 GMT Evening Standard Jeanette Winterson is spellbound by the radical achievement of Barbara Hepworth whose centenary year is celebrated by exhibitions at Tate St Ives and in her nativeYorkshire. Henry Moore called 1932 'The Year of the Hole'. The fact is that Barbara Hepworth made her first pierced form in 1931, the year she gave birth to her first child. journalism_01_item.asp?journalism_01ID=172 Tue, 1 Nov 2005 -1:00:00 GMT Visual Arts This summer we had the pleasure of walking along the River Thames between the Hayward Gallery and Tate Modern, and finding not one, but two, major women artists dominating both spaces. Rebecca Horn and Frida Kahlo were an exciting double first, and this autumn, women will again be major players in the art galleries, with new work by Rachel Whiteread, Sarah Lucas, Gillian Wearing and Tacita Dean, all coming our way. journalism_01_item.asp?journalism_01ID=158 Sat, 1 Oct 2005 -1:00:00 GMT Visual Arts London is a mercurial city and that is part of its charm. The skyline changes, districts alter their character as different kinds of people move in and out. The Olympics, and Cross Rail will shift the balance in the East End, and finally connect the East End and West End, or what used to be Poverty London with Posh London. journalism_01_item.asp?journalism_01ID=24 Sat, 1 Oct 2005 -1:00:00 GMT Evening Standard Can it be true that a Chinese Herbalist with a bubbling blue fish tank has opened its doors in Spitalfields market? journalism_01_item.asp?journalism_01ID=25 Sat, 1 Oct 2005 -1:00:00 GMT Evening Standard As the world shrinks, imaginative space becomes more important. Every explorer feels regret after the elation of discovery. Captain Cooke's diaries are full of sadness as well as wonder, as the unknown world becomes the known. Mallory, writing to his wife about the challenge of Everest, acknowledged the absurdity, as well as the sublime lure, of a mountain top 'the size of a billiard table.' journalism_01_item.asp?journalism_01ID=76 Sat, 1 Oct 2005 -1:00:00 GMT The Times : Books In a world that is increasingly on-line, why are writers so wary of websites? Type in a few well-known names and the results are unexpected and amusing: Try Rushdie, and Salman's Site looks promising, but out pops a single line -Under Construction. journalism_01_item.asp?journalism_01ID=77 Sat, 1 Oct 2005 -1:00:00 GMT The Times : Books This summer we had the pleasure of walking along the River Thames between the Hayward Gallery and Tate Modern, and finding not one, but two, major women artists dominating both spaces. Rebecca Horn and Frida Kahlo were an exciting double first, and this autumn, women will again be major players in the art galleries, with new work by Rachel Whiteread, Sarah Lucas, Gillian Wearing and Tacita Dean, all coming our way. journalism_01_item.asp?journalism_01ID=28 Sat, 1 Oct 2005 -1:00:00 GMT The Guardian Today is my birthday. Forty-six years ago I was left on the steps of a Manchester orphanage, and later adopted by my Pentecostal parents and taken to live in Accrington. journalism_01_item.asp?journalism_01ID=78 Thu, 1 Sep 2005 -1:00:00 GMT The Times : Books August is Playboy month. If you were wondering what to read on your holidays, and you don't mind the weight, take the sumptuous black-bound The PlayboyBook. journalism_01_item.asp?journalism_01ID=79 Thu, 1 Sep 2005 -1:00:00 GMT The Times : Books It's summer time again, and I have been to Legoland. My godchildren who are nine and six, had got tired of the 1920's model village at Bourton on the Water, even though the miniature Baptist chapel vibrates its tiny walls with happy hymn singing. journalism_01_item.asp?journalism_01ID=80 Thu, 1 Sep 2005 -1:00:00 GMT The Times : Books What are you having for supper tonight? I shall be eating crayfish from the river at the bottom of my garden, served with mayonnaise made with eggs from my own hens. The eggs will do double work in an egg, bean, and tomato salad, with the tomatoes just ripe on their vines, and picked lovely and warm, not supermarket chilled. I'll make a big green salad from my loose leaf lettuces, add a few chopped spring onions, and throw fresh basil and mint and parsley over the lot. journalism_01_item.asp?journalism_01ID=180 Thu, 1 Sep 2005 -1:00:00 GMT Other Articles Icon. Muse. Celebrity. Frida Kahlo is now considered by many to be the best female painter of the twentieth century, and a woman whose personal story is so persuasive that Hollywood has turned her life into big screen drama. journalism_01_item.asp?journalism_01ID=160 Wed, 1 Jun 2005 -1:00:00 GMT Visual Arts 'In 1964 I was twenty years old and living in Barcelona in one of those hotels where you rent rooms by the hour. I was working with glass fibre, without a mask or anything, because nobody said it was dangerous, then suddenly I got very sick. For a year I was in a Sanatorium. My parents died. I was totally isolated. That's when I began to produce my first body-sculptures. I could sew lying in bed.' journalism_01_item.asp?journalism_01ID=163 Wed, 1 Jun 2005 -1:00:00 GMT Visual Arts It doesn't take a genius to work out that children love to play shop; they never say 'Let's play supermarkets!' Some kids have never been inside a small old-fashioned grocer or deli, and yet their imaginations tell them to set up a makeshift counter, sell goods on one side, and buy them on the other side. It's so deep within us that science might discover a gene for it. journalism_01_item.asp?journalism_01ID=182 Sun, 1 May 2005 -1:00:00 GMT Other Articles 'There's nothing to be done but to live in and for yourself - today you're a great genius - tomorrow they'll despise you - it's only natural.' At the close of her first volume, The Unknown Matisse, Hilary Spurling left us with Matisse just short of his fortieth birthday in 1909, tentatively toasting the future. For twenty years he had lived hand to mouth, accepting ridicule and misunderstanding, relying on a few buyers like Sarah Stein, (Gertrude Stein's sister-in-law), to put food on the table and pay the rent. journalism_01_item.asp?journalism_01ID=168 Fri, 1 Apr 2005 -1:00:00 GMT Visual Arts In 1995 I had enough money in the bank to buy a studio flat in Notting Hill. I was living in the country, and I thought a fashionable broom cupboard near Paddington Station would be a good idea for London trips. Some god who enjoys a practical joke must have overheard my thoughts, because the next day a friend in Spitalfields, East London, called me to say that the 1780's house next to hers could be bought for exactly the same price as the dinky Victorian bedsit I was nosing around. journalism_01_item.asp?journalism_01ID=183 Sat, 1 Jan 2005 -1:00:00 GMT Other Articles When Napoleon called Britain 'a nation of shopkeepers', he intended it to be an insult, forgetting another of his famous phrases, 'an army marches on its stomach.' John Bull beef proved superior to French boeuf, and Napoleon met his Waterloo. How times have changed in the food wars. I am passionate about food. I would rather not eat than eat badly. My friends have a joke about how I always take my own cooked sausages and an apple on the plane, but it was when I took my sausages in my Prada handbag to the Bridget Jones premier that they began to worry. journalism_01_item.asp?journalism_01ID=186 Sat, 1 Jan 2005 -1:00:00 GMT Other Articles My parents bought their first (and last) house in 1947. That was the coldest winter of the twentieth century. Mrs Winterson said the snow was as high as her upright piano, and that before my Dad and his pals pushed it indoors, everyone on the street came out for a sing-song and a plate of rationed mince pies. It was nearly Christmas and the war was over. My Dad, who had been in the D-day landings, was back at work at English Electric. He liked the job because they let him make Christmas tree lights when things were quiet, which was most of the time. He swapped his red and white flashing snowflakes for extra food for their first Christmas together. They shared a rabbit bred on their allotment, stuffed with apples and cooked in cider. journalism_01_item.asp?journalism_01ID=188 Wed, 1 Dec 2004 -1:00:00 GMT Other Articles As I drove through the Oxfordshire countryside to meet Philip Pullman, I was thinking about Satan. There is much of Milton's Lucifer in Pullman's Lord Asriel, and writers tend to attach themselves to their characters, just as humans and their daemons are attached to each other, in the His Dark Materials trilogy. How much of Lord Asriel would I find in Mr Pullman? First of all I had to find the house. I went into the local post office, where I was courteously given directions, then asked 'Are you from the film company or do you want his autograph?' journalism_01_item.asp?journalism_01ID=190 Wed, 1 Dec 2004 -1:00:00 GMT Other Articles Oct 2 My mother used to say, 'The Bible tells us to turn the other cheek, but there are only so many cheeks in a day.' How true. How long will the British people go on forgiving Tony Blair? All the signs are that patience is running out. My own patience ran out when Blair took us to into war without a mandate from the British people or from the United Nations. At that moment Britain became Little America. journalism_01_item.asp?journalism_01ID=191 Mon, 1 Nov 2004 -1:00:00 GMT Other Articles Women, women everywhere, and not a man in sight: Top-shelf centre-fold? Nunnery? Single-sex boarding school? Feminist Utopia? Beauty Parlour? journalism_01_item.asp?journalism_01ID=110 Fri, 29 Oct 2004 -1:00:00 GMT The Guardian In 1921, a Tory MP proposed the clause 'Acts of Gross Indecency by Females', to be added to the criminal Law Amendment Act of 1885, which proscribed male homosexuality. In the House of Commons he pronounced that lesbianism threatened the birth rate, debauched young girls and induced neurasthenia and insanity. Everyone agreed, and the clause was taken to the House of Lords to be ratified. journalism_01_item.asp?journalism_01ID=17 Wed, 1 Sep 2004 -1:00:00 GMT The Times I had two mothers; my birth mother who gave me up for adoption, and my new mother, the late, great, Mrs Winterson, complete with Gospel Tent and rolling pin. She wore headscarves and crimpelene dresses, a corset and a full-length apron, bedroom slippers around the house, and 200-denier stockings outdoors. She believed in the power of Jesus, Armageddon, and herbal medicines. I had no jabs and no pills as a child, and although this was the 1960's, every day in winter, she sealed my chest in brown paper and Vick. I was the only child at my school who rustled. journalism_01_item.asp?journalism_01ID=193 Wed, 1 Sep 2004 -1:00:00 GMT Other Articles In September 200, Dawn Simmonds was cremated in Charleston, South Carolina. Her husband was not present at the memorial service, but her daughter took the ashes. It was at this service that the biographer Edward Ball decided to investigate the strange life of Mrs Simmonds - who until 1968 had been a man. It is a bizarre story, wonderfully told, with the right blend of gossip and research. By the end of the book I felt I understand Dawn, aka Gordon, and I wished I had met her - a sure sign that this biography has succeeded in its aims of intimacy and revelation. journalism_01_item.asp?journalism_01ID=194 Wed, 1 Sep 2004 -1:00:00 GMT Other Articles I was in a tearing hurry to get to Charlbury station for the London train, but Sister George wanted to go in the other direction towards Hereford. Sister George is my 1967 Landrover, and anyone who has this Series 11 model will know that reverse and first gear are frighteningly close together. My gearbox has no synchromesh left - if it ever had any to start with - and so the clutch has to be depressed differently for every gear change. At present, getting Sister George to travel forwards begins with preventing her from travelling backwards. Remember Tony Curtis and the motorboat in Some Like It Hot? It is only a matter of time before I too cover the eight miles between Old Minster Lovell and Charlbury entirely in reverse. journalism_01_item.asp?journalism_01ID=198 Thu, 1 Jul 2004 -1:00:00 GMT Other Articles Most of us find ourselves glancing at the horoscope columns. All of us know our birth sign. Some of us have a bit of the jargon to go with the sign - I'm a Leo so I need to have everything my own way. My boyfriend was a Scorpio, so we had great sex but he lied all time. Like you, I found myself wondering if there was any 'truth' in astrology, and for once the inverted commas are necessary, because astrological truth is neither a fact nor a fiction, but a potent combination of both. journalism_01_item.asp?journalism_01ID=210 Thu, 1 Jul 2004 -1:00:00 GMT Other Articles I travel by train at least twice a week, often late at night. I count myself lucky that my mobile phone has been stolen only once - by a man so drunk that he was sick all over it as soon as he snatched it. I have been physically threatened twice, and on each occasion I knocked loudly on the driver's door and demanded help. The help was not forthcoming, but even yobs realise that trains have drivers, and they didn't stay to find out what might happen. journalism_01_item.asp?journalism_01ID=199 Tue, 1 Jun 2004 -1:00:00 GMT Other Articles News of the fire destroying a vast collection of work by Britpack artists, including Hirst, Emin, Hume, Lucas, the Chapman brothers, and Gillian Ayres, is bringing joy to the philistines who would have paid good money to torch it themselves. journalism_01_item.asp?journalism_01ID=81 Tue, 1 Jun 2004 -1:00:00 GMT The Times Next time your dinner party conversation starts to flag, introduce the subject of banking. At a stroke you will include Call Centres in India, computer catastrophes, malevolent Counter Clerks, pushy Sales Teams, queue misery, glossy brochures and dull service. journalism_01_item.asp?journalism_01ID=82 Thu, 1 Apr 2004 -1:00:00 GMT The Times The curious incident of the tart in the Web-Blog asks interesting questions about what we call fiction and fact. Now that The Times is almost certain that Belle de Jour is not a prostitute on the game, but a writer on the make, her publishing deal looks set to collapse faster than one of her elderly clients without Viagra. journalism_01_item.asp?journalism_01ID=83 Thu, 1 Apr 2004 -1:00:00 GMT The Times Does modern life make us happy? Prompted by Alain de Botton's new book, I asked forty people this question, and every one of them said no. Too fast, too loud, impersonal, no values, were common complaints, side by side with insecurity - particularly at work. The dream of Socialism and Conservatism alike - to provide a framework where people can find purpose and possibility, has become a fitful and sleepless night. Last year, in the UK alone, 30,000,000 tranquilisers and anti-depressants were prescribed. journalism_01_item.asp?journalism_01ID=84 Thu, 1 Apr 2004 -1:00:00 GMT The Times Rome. La Dolce Vita. Rome. The Eternal City. Rome, where the snow falls through the unclosed dome of The Pantheon. journalism_01_item.asp?journalism_01ID=85 Mon, 1 Mar 2004 -1:00:00 GMT The Times The late Denis Severs, Canadian eccentric and Georgian fanatic, has just published a book titled 18 Folgate St, about the house he used to live in and open to the public. journalism_01_item.asp?journalism_01ID=18 Mon, 1 Mar 2004 -1:00:00 GMT Building Design The trouble with art is that it fits any theory. While science polices its objectivity, art has none. Art is a dialogue, sometimes a shouting match, always an exchange. This is not to say that art has no standards and cannot be judged except by personal taste - it is that art involves us. journalism_01_item.asp?journalism_01ID=105 Mon, 1 Mar 2004 -1:00:00 GMT The Times In the reign of Elizabeth the First, life expectancy was around forty years, In our Elizabeth's reign, it is eighty years and rising. journalism_01_item.asp?journalism_01ID=89 Mon, 1 Mar 2004 -1:00:00 GMT The Times The personal life. She has nothing to hide, but she believes that 'there should be no person between the reader and the book.' journalism_01_item.asp?journalism_01ID=90 Mon, 1 Mar 2004 -1:00:00 GMT The Times The Big Read is under way. Its purpose is to find the Nation's Favourite Book. The BBC has decided to do for books what it did for Princess Diana and Winston Churchill, but this time the documentaries will follow the vote. When the Nation (and capital letters are important here) has spoken, our Top 100 books will be reduced to 10, and these 10 will all enjoy 60 minutes of BBC2 airtime. Never say that Auntie isn't keen on culture. journalism_01_item.asp?journalism_01ID=91 Mon, 1 Mar 2004 -1:00:00 GMT The Times I am glad I am not rich; if I were, I would spend my money on endless numbers of houses. I would have houses the way Catholics have children. For me, unprotected sex is going to an auction. journalism_01_item.asp?journalism_01ID=92 Mon, 1 Mar 2004 -1:00:00 GMT The Times Billed as 'the funniest book you'll read this year', Coren and Skelton's account of their attempts to make a porn movie, is a laugh out-loud book, absolutely inoffensive, a sort of Carry On Pornography. journalism_01_item.asp?journalism_01ID=94 Mon, 1 Mar 2004 -1:00:00 GMT The Times Alice Oswald is making a new kind of poetry. There is nothing fancy about it - she is doing the job, simple and enormous, of re-working the model for the twenty first century. journalism_01_item.asp?journalism_01ID=95 Mon, 1 Mar 2004 -1:00:00 GMT The Times There are two kinds of fantasy fiction; one uses the conventions of science-fiction to create a hi-tech, advanced civilisation, able to travel to other planets, but machine dependent, the other kind is closer to the paradigms of fairy-tale; talking creatures, a natural world, and most importantly, humans who have harnessed their own powers, not those of super-computers and time machines. journalism_01_item.asp?journalism_01ID=96 Mon, 1 Mar 2004 -1:00:00 GMT The Times He was the most talked about medical officer of his day. She was a dandy in top-boots with stacked heels dyed red to match her hair. He performed the first successful Caesarean section by a British doctor. She was libelled for sodomy with the Governor of the Cape. journalism_01_item.asp?journalism_01ID=97 Mon, 1 Mar 2004 -1:00:00 GMT The Times 'I dread the inevitable acceleration of American world domination.... We shall all be colonised.' journalism_01_item.asp?journalism_01ID=98 Mon, 1 Mar 2004 -1:00:00 GMT The Times Last year John Carey asked me to deliver a lecture at Oxford called What is Art For? I do not see my host later, which puzzled me slightly, but now, finding this, his new book, I am not puzzled anymore, and I remember that Macbeth too was a host. journalism_01_item.asp?journalism_01ID=108 Mon, 1 Mar 2004 -1:00:00 GMT The Times It's summer time again, and I have been to Legoland. My godchildren who are nine and six, had got tired of the 1920's model village at Bourton on the Water, even though the miniature Baptist chapel vibrates its tiny walls with happy hymn singing. journalism_01_item.asp?journalism_01ID=109 Mon, 1 Mar 2004 -1:00:00 GMT The Times Ruskin said, 'Great nations write their autobiographies in three manuscripts; the book of their deeds, the book of their words, and the book of their art... of the three, the only trustworthy one is the last.' Few of us nowadays trust politicians or newspapers. Not many of us believe in the objectivity of history. We have learned to question events past and present, with a cynicism that Ruskin, and his nineteenth century contemporaries, would find bewilderingly painful, but the notion that art might be the place for faith and optimism - which is how I would define trust - is probably as ridiculous to most people as Tracy Emin's My Bed. journalism_01_item.asp?journalism_01ID=170 Mon, 1 Mar 2004 -1:00:00 GMT Visual Arts 'There isn't a thing in my life that hasn't been extreme - personal health, family, economic situations.' Eva Hesse had the perfect personal CV for an artist. Her family were forced to flee Nazi Germany in 1939, and she and her sister were separated from their parents for five months. Eva was only two when she was put on a train to Holland to escape Nazi persecution. Her father was a criminal lawyer and the family was well to do. When they eventually settled in Washington Heights, New York, they had to take in a boarder to pay the bills, and her father worked as an insurance broker. journalism_01_item.asp?journalism_01ID=165 Mon, 1 Mar 2004 -1:00:00 GMT Visual Arts Seven hundred paintings, nine hundred drawings, three hundred prints, two great mural cycles, and a number of lesser projects. Goya had the energy of a toreador, the endurance of a bull, and the enthusiasm of the crowd. The world was his bullring, and this was a world jostling with contradictions and opposites. We imagine that our own society is pluralistic, but it is more private and segregated than at any other time in history. We have no contact with the rich, the famous, the aristocracy, the monarchy, or the underclass. Goya could meet them all in a single day. journalism_01_item.asp?journalism_01ID=166 Mon, 1 Mar 2004 -1:00:00 GMT Visual Arts Will the destruction of the World Trade Centre give a new impetus to Health and Safety regulations? I do not see this as a good thing. It will not be possible to build a fire-proof, bomb-proof, terrorist- proof building, any more than it is possible to lead a fire-proof, bomb-proof, terrorist free life. journalism_01_item.asp?journalism_01ID=159 Mon, 1 Mar 2004 -1:00:00 GMT Building Design I was vegetarian for seven years as a private protest against factory farming. Everything in life feeds on something else; that is the rule of survival As humans who now live by farming not by hunting, there is an urgent ethical question; is it right to mistreat animals in the name of food? journalism_01_item.asp?journalism_01ID=200 Mon, 1 Mar 2004 -1:00:00 GMT Other Articles I love racing. I love horses. I do not care if Clare Balding is straight, gay, Martian, or neutered, as long as she goes on entertaining us at the racetrack. Tipped as the next face of BBC sport, Miss Balding is what the BBC does best - no gimmicks, no gameshow personality, just top class commentary that comes out of a big brain with plenty of experience and a passion for the subject. journalism_01_item.asp?journalism_01ID=201 Mon, 1 Mar 2004 -1:00:00 GMT Other Articles My mother was a re-incarnation of the Virgin Mary. An angel came to her and told her she would have a child, but as she wasn't prepared to do this by any ordinary method, she took a trip to the orphanage and got me. My new parents were working class, suspicious of education, and deeply religious. The book I was given to read was the Bible. Everything else had to be vetted by my mother, whose argument against books ran something like; 'The trouble with a book is that you never know what's in it, until it's too late.' journalism_01_item.asp?journalism_01ID=202 Mon, 1 Mar 2004 -1:00:00 GMT Other Articles I grew up in Accrington, a northern working class town, with nothing to its name but a football team and a collection of Tiffany glass. I was adopted by Pentecostal evangelists, who wanted me to go onto the Mission fields, to save souls. My mother believed I had been given to her by God, but when she was cross with me, which was often, she used to wipe her hands on her full length apron and say 'The Devil led us to the wrong crib.' journalism_01_item.asp?journalism_01ID=203 Mon, 1 Mar 2004 -1:00:00 GMT Other Articles There was a knock at the door. I answered it to a tramp who said, 'Please tell Miss Kennedy the vagrants are outside.' Marianna heard the message herself, and out down her gilding brush ,to give the men a couple of quid. journalism_01_item.asp?journalism_01ID=204 Mon, 1 Mar 2004 -1:00:00 GMT Other Articles Some of you will recall the story of the Cambridge academic who decided to bolster his income by buying up the domain names of 130 world-class writers. His method was to trawl the best-seller lists and register anybody who was still available, which was most of us, because it's only very recently that even savvy celebrities like Mick Jagger and Sting, have realised that they need to own their own name. journalism_01_item.asp?journalism_01ID=205 Mon, 1 Mar 2004 -1:00:00 GMT Other Articles I had a temperature of 102°, a spotted throat, delirium, and a book to finish. I was staying alone in a remote cottage in Cornwall, without a car. My publisher suggested I telephone Hilary Fairclough, a homeopath who practises in London and Penzance. I croaked out my symptoms, and Hilary sent round a remedy called Lachesis, made from snake venom. Four hours later I had no temperature and no infected throat. journalism_01_item.asp?journalism_01ID=207 Sun, 1 Feb 2004 -1:00:00 GMT The Times At the premier of the original 1975 movie of Stepford Wives, the director Bryan Forbes, tells of how he was assaulted by a 'militant libber' with an umbrella. It is unlikely that this will happen to Peter Oz, director of the new glossy Stepford re-make. journalism_01_item.asp?journalism_01ID=111 Thu, 1 Jan 2004 -1:00:00 GMT The Guardian The State Opening of Parliament will be a special occasion this year; the Queen will announce a Civil Partnership Bill. journalism_01_item.asp?journalism_01ID=87 Thu, 1 Jan 2004 -1:00:00 GMT The Times News in the Sunday Times Rich List that JK Rowling earned £125,000,000 last year, may be the beginning of a new phenomenon: No, not a nation that sleeps on Harry Potter pillow cases, but an emerging breed of writer who dreams of wealth. journalism_01_item.asp?journalism_01ID=88 Thu, 1 Jan 2004 -1:00:00 GMT The Times This week, my godchild Eleanor finishes her three years pre-prep at St Paul's Cathedral School, ready to start at City of London School for Girls in September. journalism_01_item.asp?journalism_01ID=112 Tue, 8 Jul 2003 -1:00:00 GMT The Guardian There are two kinds of transcendent experience; sex with someone you love, and a night at the opera. journalism_01_item.asp?journalism_01ID=113 Sat, 21 Jun 2003 -1:00:00 GMT The Guardian Twice a year the British confess their sins of greed and sloth and vow to mend their ways. The first time is straight after Christmas, when most of us look like the turkeys we've eaten. The second time is about now, when the holiday season makes men flex their pecs, only to discover they don't have any, and we girls dust down the bikini, to find that it only fits one boob and half a bottom. journalism_01_item.asp?journalism_01ID=114 Mon, 9 Jun 2003 -1:00:00 GMT The Guardian In 1439 Johann Gutenberg took on an apprentice to help him produce a book on his new printing press. Twenty copies of Ovid's Metamorphosis were carefully run off and left to dry before being bound in vellum. The apprentice was a forger by trade, and Gutenberg had employed him for his quick mind and light hands. As the apprentice painstakingly changed the type page by page, he asked Gutenberg how anyone would be able to tell which of the Ovids was the original. Gutenberg was baffled. He tried to explain that the books were identical - that any number of them could be produced, all original and all copies. His apprentice grew heated. Did Gutenberg take him for a fool? There was always an original, and afterwards copies, and no doubt forgeries, that was how the market worked. journalism_01_item.asp?journalism_01ID=206 Sat, 1 Mar 2003 -1:00:00 GMT Other Articles When I began my career, the categorical imperative of every young writer was to represent his own time. Full of good intentions, I tried to identify myself with the ruthless energies propelling the events of our century... journalism_01_item.asp?journalism_01ID=93 Wed, 1 Jan 2003 -1:00:00 GMT The Times An American lady travelling to Paris in 1913 - the kind of American lady who will still be travelling to Paris in 2013 - asked Ezra Pound what he thought art was for. Pound replied, 'Ask me what a rose bush is for.' journalism_01_item.asp?journalism_01ID=115 Fri, 1 Nov 2002 -1:00:00 GMT The Guardian This weekend sees the start of two serious television dramas; George Eliot's Daniel Deronda on BBC1, and Boris Pasternak's Dr Zhivago on ITV. Both have been adapted by Andrew Davies. journalism_01_item.asp?journalism_01ID=116 Fri, 1 Nov 2002 -1:00:00 GMT The Guardian My mission, and I chose to accept it, was to watch half a dozen Bond movies and summon up some firepower on the Bond women. journalism_01_item.asp?journalism_01ID=118 Fri, 13 Sep 2002 -1:00:00 GMT The Guardian What is good sex? If you don't know, can you find out from a book? journalism_01_item.asp?journalism_01ID=119 Fri, 23 Aug 2002 -1:00:00 GMT The Guardian Going on holiday means always having to say you're sorry. journalism_01_item.asp?journalism_01ID=120 Fri, 9 Aug 2002 -1:00:00 GMT The Guardian What's the difference between men's and women's tennis? Power? Speed? Prize money? Sponsorship? journalism_01_item.asp?journalism_01ID=123 Sun, 28 Jul 2002 -1:00:00 GMT The Guardian Why is Nancy Dell'Olio being beaten up by the British press just because she has kept her man? Sven-Goran Eriksson, the taciturn Swede, is not my idea of a good night out, but if Nancy loves him, and if she is angry when his name is linked with Ulrika Jonsson, doesn't that make her just like most women on the planet? journalism_01_item.asp?journalism_01ID=121 Fri, 26 Jul 2002 -1:00:00 GMT The Guardian What do working mothers want? The simple answer is - to be happy. Why do working mothers want to be happy? It seems, because, they are not. journalism_01_item.asp?journalism_01ID=122 Fri, 5 Jul 2002 -1:00:00 GMT The Guardian An estate agent selling my house told me that if a man comes to view without his wife, and makes an offer, the offer is accepted. If a woman comes to view without her husband, they insist she bring him first. journalism_01_item.asp?journalism_01ID=124 Tue, 11 Jun 2002 -1:00:00 GMT The Guardian We live in a strange time. Just as our genuinely liberal and civilised values are making a real difference in society, the forces of reaction are growing stronger. This is good news and bad. It means we are getting somewhere, and it means that we must fight harder. journalism_01_item.asp?journalism_01ID=126 Tue, 21 May 2002 -1:00:00 GMT The Guardian Ruth Kelly, economic secretary to the Treasury, is concerned that women are not interested in long-term financial planning. Women over the age of 55 are half as likely as men to have their own pension. This figure falls to around 20% less likely, for women under 35. journalism_01_item.asp?journalism_01ID=125 Sun, 5 May 2002 -1:00:00 GMT The Guardian Spring is here, and every marquee in the Cotswolds has been hired out for a wedding. My futile search for a stretch of canvas was solved by my assistant finding us a Scout Kitchen from Yorkshire. She's from Yorkshire herself, and she says it's still too cold up north to be starting the rest of your life in a tent. journalism_01_item.asp?journalism_01ID=128 Tue, 23 Apr 2002 -1:00:00 GMT The Guardian In the long argument over designer babies, did anyone imagine that parents might prefer a designer disability? journalism_01_item.asp?journalism_01ID=127 Tue, 9 Apr 2002 -1:00:00 GMT The Guardian I am feeling weighed down by the new Essentialism. The nature and nurture debate is as old as we are, but recent years of trendy relativism seem to be collapsing back into a genetic-based argument where science has replaced God as the irrefutable So What? journalism_01_item.asp?journalism_01ID=129 Tue, 26 Mar 2002 -1:00:00 GMT The Guardian Mother love is a tricky business. There are Madonna mothers and monster mothers. There are mothers of all mankind, like Mother Theresa and Princess Di, and there are mothers like my own Mrs Winterson, who on hearing the news that I had fallen in love with a girl, lay on the settee and said 'My varicose veins are going to burst.' journalism_01_item.asp?journalism_01ID=130 Tue, 12 Mar 2002 -1:00:00 GMT The Guardian Mother love is a tricky business. There are Madonna mothers and monster mothers. There are mothers of all mankind, like Mother Theresa and Princess Di, and there are mothers like my own Mrs Winterson, who on hearing the news that I had fallen in love with a girl, lay on the settee and said 'My varicose veins are going to burst.' journalism_01_item.asp?journalism_01ID=131 Tue, 12 Mar 2002 -1:00:00 GMT The Guardian God - sorry - Alexander Waugh : God - A biography. 'While other children clamoured for bedtime stories, Alexander Waugh was asking his father Auberon, questions about God. The replies were unhelpful to a boy on a quest - as was the cheque-book journalism offered by Waugh the Elder on his death-bed; he wanted to pay Alexander the sum of his advance so that he could withdraw this book from publication. journalism_01_item.asp?journalism_01ID=99 Fri, 1 Mar 2002 -1:00:00 GMT The Times This is an expanding universe and we are all getting fatter. Last week's reports from health watchdogs had me reaching in a panic for the biscuit tin - just as I was about to eat every single Jaffa Cake, I knew I had to throw them all away. Comfort eating is over - actually eating is over. We had all better stop now, before it's too late. journalism_01_item.asp?journalism_01ID=132 Tue, 26 Feb 2002 -1:00:00 GMT The Guardian The row about arranged marriages is missing the point: This is more than an immigration issue or a cultural issue; it is a question of identity. The important decisions of our lives are the ones we need to make for ourselves. This is especially true for women, whose choices are often lost inside those of husband and family. journalism_01_item.asp?journalism_01ID=133 Tue, 12 Feb 2002 -1:00:00 GMT The Guardian Last week I went into the House of Lords as a guest of Ruth Rendell, who was speaking in support of Lord Lester's Civil Partnership Bill. This bill, dubbed by the tabloids as 'Gay Marriage', seeks to create a legal register where same sex and heterosexual couples can declare their commitment to each other, and so obtain both the benefits and the obligations of marriage. journalism_01_item.asp?journalism_01ID=134 Tue, 29 Jan 2002 -1:00:00 GMT The Guardian The Crown Appointments Commission is meeting to draw up a shortlist of Bishops, one of whom will be chosen by the Prime Minister to be the next archbishop of Canterbury. journalism_01_item.asp?journalism_01ID=135 Tue, 15 Jan 2002 -1:00:00 GMT The Guardian Sex - who needs it? You do. New Year's resolutions are wasted on diets and good works. Forget the year ahead and make 2002 the year to come. journalism_01_item.asp?journalism_01ID=136 Wed, 2 Jan 2002 -1:00:00 GMT The Guardian When I moved to the Cotswolds eight years ago, I was anti-hunt. I had never been to a Meet, talked to any of the characters involved, or visited the kennels. journalism_01_item.asp?journalism_01ID=117 Tue, 1 Jan 2002 -1:00:00 GMT The Guardian 'Imagine getting up in the morning and finding that your feet were replaced by wheels.' This is the grab-line for the latest boy's toy, I mean Human Transporter, invented by Dean Kamen and just released to a waiting world. journalism_01_item.asp?journalism_01ID=137 Tue, 11 Dec 2001 -1:00:00 GMT The Guardian Dennis Severs was a Canadian eccentric who came to England in the 1960's, searching for what he called 'English light.' journalism_01_item.asp?journalism_01ID=100 Sat, 1 Dec 2001 -1:00:00 GMT The Times Yesterday Deborah Warner and Fiona Shaw won Best Director and Best Actress at the Evening Standard Theatre Awards, for their production of Medea. journalism_01_item.asp?journalism_01ID=138 Tue, 27 Nov 2001 -1:00:00 GMT The Guardian Yesterday lunchtime I filed my copy as I always do, and went out. By the middle of the afternoon I was watching news of the American Airlines crash. A friend of mine had left Heathrow for JFK at 2pm. She had gone to set up an installation project - The Angel Project - as a part of a desire to begin the healing after the pain. journalism_01_item.asp?journalism_01ID=139 Tue, 13 Nov 2001 -1:00:00 GMT The Guardian Once upon a time there was a small blue planet pitched in the outer spiral of a minor galaxy called The Milky Way. In all the universe, bounded by infinity, this planet seemed to be the only one that understood life. Planet Earth - that wanted life so much, she got it. journalism_01_item.asp?journalism_01ID=140 Tue, 30 Oct 2001 -1:00:00 GMT The Guardian Strange world where AA Gill - Journalist Without Portfolio - feels able to savage men and women angry about this phoney war. journalism_01_item.asp?journalism_01ID=141 Tue, 16 Oct 2001 -1:00:00 GMT The Guardian At the centre of this book is a single explosive claim: it is better to read the Bible as good poetry than as bad science. journalism_01_item.asp?journalism_01ID=101 Mon, 1 Oct 2001 -1:00:00 GMT The Times Victoria Beckham Why is Posh so angry? - 'And Brooklyn - when you're old enough to read this book, you'll see that Mummy and Daddy were really really famous once.' journalism_01_item.asp?journalism_01ID=102 Mon, 1 Oct 2001 -1:00:00 GMT The Times What was passing through the minds of the great and the good as they prayed in St Paul's Cathedral last week, 'Forgive us our trespasses as we forgive those who trespass against us'? journalism_01_item.asp?journalism_01ID=142 Tue, 18 Sep 2001 -1:00:00 GMT The Guardian Could you murder a baby as it slept in its cot? Could you batter your children to death with a claw hammer? Would you rather see your partner dead, than happy and safe with someone else? journalism_01_item.asp?journalism_01ID=143 Tue, 11 Sep 2001 -1:00:00 GMT The Guardian I have just spent a week in a hut in a forest in Shropshire. The hut has no running water, no electricity, and no foundations. It is made of heavy lapped board, with a pan-tiled pitched roof, sufficiently steep to need no guttering. journalism_01_item.asp?journalism_01ID=161 Sat, 1 Sep 2001 -1:00:00 GMT Building Design My agent in New York tells me that when they re-build the World Trade Centre, they will make it bigger. journalism_01_item.asp?journalism_01ID=211 Sat, 1 Sep 2001 -1:00:00 GMT Building Design What do Mary Archer and Christine Hamilton have in common? Mary is cool and composed, Christine crashes around in her Coco the Clown clothes. Mary is the master of the one-line put downs 'my husband has a talent for inaccurate précis.' journalism_01_item.asp?journalism_01ID=144 Tue, 21 Aug 2001 -1:00:00 GMT The Guardian Men have found a new champion. Feminist icon and world-class novelist Doris Lessing has told the girls to lay off. She used her Edinburgh Festival appearance to lament the cultural divide between men and women, blaming women for their 'pointless humiliation' of the hairier sex. journalism_01_item.asp?journalism_01ID=145 Wed, 15 Aug 2001 -1:00:00 GMT The Guardian The late Mrs Winterson had a bathing costume made from black-out material. This home-made suit was a descendent of those Victorian beach effects worn by women to conceal their modesty. Known in the trade as Suicide Suits, these costumes were so heavy that anything other than paddling in the shallows meant death by sinkage. This didn't worry my mother; Jesus was her lifebelt. journalism_01_item.asp?journalism_01ID=146 Tue, 7 Aug 2001 -1:00:00 GMT The Guardian Why do the French do it better? Don't worry, I'm not thinking about sex, though that was well under way in the cabin next to me, as I travelled by night from Calais to Brieve. journalism_01_item.asp?journalism_01ID=164 Wed, 1 Aug 2001 -1:00:00 GMT Building Design If travel broadens the mind, that may be because it frees the mind from usefulness. Our daily lives are spent being functional. Our cars, homes, workplaces all have a primary purpose. However pleasant we make those environments, we cannot forget what they are for. The same is true of most of the buildings we visit; their beauty, extravagance, ugliness, meanness, is disguised by their use. journalism_01_item.asp?journalism_01ID=167 Wed, 1 Aug 2001 -1:00:00 GMT Building Design John Berger : The Shape of a Pocket John Berger's collection of essays gathers together six years of passionate thinking. journalism_01_item.asp?journalism_01ID=103 Wed, 1 Aug 2001 -1:00:00 GMT The Times I love Joan Collins. While seventies feminists were wondering whether all men are rapists and all sex is power, Joan was out there, ball-breaking in her stilettos, looking like a Playboy centrefold, and maddeningly in charge. journalism_01_item.asp?journalism_01ID=147 Tue, 24 Jul 2001 -1:00:00 GMT The Guardian My mother used to say, 'Why be happy when you could be normal?' This autumn, Lord Lester of Herne Hill, a Liberal Democrat peer, will sponsor a Private Members Bill in the Lords, to introduce a Civil Partnership Register. This will give gay couples the same legal rights as married couples. If it succeeds, happy/normal, won't be an alternative, it will amount to the same thing. journalism_01_item.asp?journalism_01ID=148 Tue, 10 Jul 2001 -1:00:00 GMT The Guardian I decided to go and see for myself. It was a hot evening. The Circle line had collapsed. The Japanese tourists were politely taking photographs of the Houses of Parliament. The British tourists were stripped to the waist, with the look and colour of salmon sashimi. journalism_01_item.asp?journalism_01ID=169 Sun, 1 Jul 2001 -1:00:00 GMT Building Design If you are taking just one book on holiday this year, take the book I would choose as pillow and plate, alone on a desert island. journalism_01_item.asp?journalism_01ID=171 Sun, 1 Jul 2001 -1:00:00 GMT Building Design In 1997 Adrienne Rich was to be honoured in her native America with the National Medal for the Arts. She declined. Her response was as sure as her poetry: 'Art means nothing if it simply decorates the dinner table of power that holds it hostage.' journalism_01_item.asp?journalism_01ID=104 Sun, 1 Jul 2001 -1:00:00 GMT The Times Picture this. A woman in her sixties and her brother in his fifties, turn up at an LA fertility clinic and get treatment costing around $160,000. Brother's sperm impregnates a surrogate mother, who also passes an egg to sister, so that she can get pregnant too. journalism_01_item.asp?journalism_01ID=149 Tue, 26 Jun 2001 -1:00:00 GMT The Guardian Just as I was beginning to despair about women and politics - our numbers, our power, our image, a new Joan of Arc steps forth. Ann Widdecombe wants to be Prime Minister. journalism_01_item.asp?journalism_01ID=150 Tue, 12 Jun 2001 -1:00:00 GMT The Guardian This week, Room 101 is reserved for Persimmon Homes. They are building a new development on land by Oxford railway station, and as ever, these houses could be in Berkshire, Hampshire, or on Planet Zog. You all know what they look like. These are the Baked Beans of Building - 57 varieties, all exactly the same. DON'T write in about the choice of porches, you know how I feel about porches... journalism_01_item.asp?journalism_01ID=173 Fri, 1 Jun 2001 -1:00:00 GMT Building Design An island of rocks. Sea-bound. Roofed with birds. Tiberius built the Villa Jovis on Capri as the ultimate retirement home. Perched like the Imperial eagle, he would survey everything, be safe from everything. His palace was designed to be as inaccessible as it was dramatic. journalism_01_item.asp?journalism_01ID=174 Fri, 1 Jun 2001 -1:00:00 GMT Building Design Now that politics is all about confession and apology - sorry about the dome, sorry about the NHS, oops, there go the Hindujas and Mandy, yes, Michael romanced boys at Cambridge, but he's straight now - it must be my turn for some Portillo-style breast-baring, although breasts were not the issue. journalism_01_item.asp?journalism_01ID=151 Tue, 29 May 2001 -1:00:00 GMT The Guardian It's a problem, and it's a big one - 36C at least. Women want larger breasts and they will pay £2500 to get them. Last week's news was dominated by MOD disclosures that female soldiers are so worried about what stuffs their full metal jackets, that they will go through medical and psychiatry panels to qualify for the operation that makes them 'a happier soldier'. Second in line are policewomen. journalism_01_item.asp?journalism_01ID=152 Tue, 1 May 2001 -1:00:00 GMT The Guardian Social engineering is good for architects. In Britain, following the Second World War, the drive was to move people out of the cities and into the suburbs. By the 1960's London's population had dropped by two million to around six million. Now it's back up to eight million again because everyone wants their place in sun. journalism_01_item.asp?journalism_01ID=175 Tue, 1 May 2001 -1:00:00 GMT Building Design I'm sitting on the iron-fronted balcony of my room at the Grand in Brighton. This hotel still has all the bustle and self-importance of its seaside heyday, and although the guests now wear tee shirts and trainers, the building itself seems to hold the ghostly imprint of straw boaters and parasols. journalism_01_item.asp?journalism_01ID=177 Tue, 1 May 2001 -1:00:00 GMT Building Design If you have been struggling to read The Daily Telegraph lately, it's not because it's a frothing right-wing rag that really believes William Hague would make a good Prime Minister, it's because your arms are too short. journalism_01_item.asp?journalism_01ID=153 Tue, 17 Apr 2001 -1:00:00 GMT The Guardian Why are architects signing away their copyrights? In my line of work there have been huge rows over copyright issues, and while some of these rows are far from ending peaceably, the growing understanding is that copyright belongs to the name at the bottom of the page - whether it's music, design, writing, or whatever. journalism_01_item.asp?journalism_01ID=181 Sun, 1 Apr 2001 -1:00:00 GMT Building Design The Landmark Trust has been rescuing and renewing dilapidated properties in Britain, and occasionally abroad, since 1965. To qualify, a building must be interesting of its kind, and eventually suitable as a holiday let. journalism_01_item.asp?journalism_01ID=179 Sun, 1 Apr 2001 -1:00:00 GMT Building Design Why do we look at pictures? Actually we don't; we look through them, round them, alongside them, often using them as a mirror for reflections of our own. Anyone who has shuffled through a gallery will know the look of bafflement and boredom worn like a mask on the faces of the visitors. They should be getting something out of this, but they're not. Fortunately there is a café journalism_01_item.asp?journalism_01ID=106 Sun, 1 Apr 2001 -1:00:00 GMT The Times In 1926 Max Ernst painted The Blessed Virgin Chastising then Infant Jesus Before Three Witnesses. The Christ is a naked muscley boy. His mother is a breasty Amazon in a red dress. Through a peep-hole window, the faces of the men, close enough to be kissing, are gazing in a direct line towards Christ's hidden penis. journalism_01_item.asp?journalism_01ID=154 Thu, 22 Mar 2001 -1:00:00 GMT The Guardian What's wrong with our food? I have bought organic food since the days when you had to call a New Age hippy from a phone box and haggle over a cabbage. Before that, I was vegetarian because I hate factory farming, its treatment of animals and its effect on the land. journalism_01_item.asp?journalism_01ID=155 Tue, 6 Mar 2001 -1:00:00 GMT The Guardian When a client complained to Le Corbusier that the roof he had built was leaking, the architect replied, 'Of course it leaks. That's how you know it's a roof.' journalism_01_item.asp?journalism_01ID=184 Thu, 1 Mar 2001 -1:00:00 GMT Building Design When I bought my little house opposite London's Spitalfields market, there were already plans to develop the site for the London Futures Exchange, and in 1997 Norman Foster's scheme was approved by Tower Hamlets. I love Norman Foster's work, and most people I talked to, felt, like me, that the site was being taken seriously. This was a development we could trust. journalism_01_item.asp?journalism_01ID=185 Thu, 1 Mar 2001 -1:00:00 GMT Building Design Years ago Nigella Lawson gave me a copy of Margaret Visser's Much depends on Dinner. It is an unravelling of the rituals, history, mystery and meaning of an ordinary meal. It is a fascinating book from an author whose method is to take something obvious and return it filled with riches. journalism_01_item.asp?journalism_01ID=107 Thu, 1 Mar 2001 -1:00:00 GMT The Times In the nineteenth century the non-orgasmic woman was considered normal. In the early twentieth century she was re-marketed as frigid. In the twenty-first century, it's just a matter of electronics. journalism_01_item.asp?journalism_01ID=156 Fri, 16 Feb 2001 -1:00:00 GMT The Guardian My best friend presented me with an envelope at Christmas. Inside was a Poiret-type note inviting me on a Mystery Weekend. Full of anxiety - I am a control freak - I arrived in London with an overnight bag, a passport, a hip flask, and two Beecham's Powders. journalism_01_item.asp?journalism_01ID=189 Thu, 1 Feb 2001 -1:00:00 GMT Building Design Last week I had the misfortune to be travelling along that series of roadworks known as the M6. This is to distinguish it from other roadworks called M1 or M40. Some people think the M stands for motorway, but how can it, when there is no way anyone can motor anywhere? journalism_01_item.asp?journalism_01ID=187 Thu, 1 Feb 2001 -1:00:00 GMT Building Design