My mother’s best friend is sick with coronavirus. She also suffers from dementia, so she likely won’t know about it or be able to understand what is happening to her – she’s just going to endure a terminal period of painful breathing, agony and frustration, medical isolation: a bodily grief. Like many people, this woman […]
Saturdays in the studenty district of Berlin where I am living have been infested with a gobbling string of raucous hens’ parties. You’ll see a dozen young or not so young women all wearing matching headpieces – bunny ears, airline-hostess hats, fascinators, halos on headbands – and maybe pink t-shirts with a slogan, or beauty […]
Just watched the opening episodes of Game of Thrones. Until recently I imagined it was a video game: a world all but invisible to me. Turns out it’s a television series. Melodrama. It’s a kingdom of sighs, and costume. I’ve never seen such a celebration of unthinking brutality. Well, not since A Clockwork Orange. It […]