FEAST OR FAMINE

Clothes, Clothes, Clothes. Music, Music, Music. Boys, Boys, Boys (2014) is Viv Albertine’s memoir from 1976-1982. Guitarist of a female punk group, Albertine writes of her involvment in the punk scene, from 1976-1982, in the company of Sid Vicious and Mick Jones, as well as post-punk to the present day.   With short, but chronological, chapters, written as simplistic snippets of memories, Australian-born Viv Albertine (1954-) begins with her childhood – the sea voyage from Australia to England at the age of four, school, her brutal father, and boys, boys, boys.  She writes of the first time a song knocked her socks off: it was 1964, she was 10 years old, and the song was The Beatles, ‘Can’t Buy Me Love’ and the flip-side, ‘You Can’t Do That’ – ‘Now everything’s changed: I’ve found the meaning of life.’ She writes of the power of the cover of Patti Smith’s 1975 album Horses – the iconic black-and-white Robert Mapplethorpe photograph. She writes of her involv...

= MARTINA NICOLLS is an international aid and development consultant, and the  author of:-  Similar But Different in the Animal Kingdom (2017), The Shortness of Life: A Mongolian Lament (2015), Liberia’s Deadest Ends (2012), Bardot’s Comet (2011), Kashmir on a Knife-Edge (2010) and The Sudan Curse (2009).

MARTINA NICOLLS is an international aid and development consultant, and the  author of:-  Similar But Different in the Animal Kingdom (2017), The Shortness of Life: A Mongolian Lament (2015), Liberia’s Deadest Ends (2012), Bardot’s Comet (2011), Kashmir on a Knife-Edge (2010) and The Sudan Curse (2009).

The Way of All Flesh (1873-1884, this edition 2004) was published posthumously in 1903, and is regarded as the first 20th century novel – and one that has been continuously available in print. It is British author Samuel Butler’s semi-autobiographical account of life in Victorian England.  Samuel Butler (1835-1902) starts with the earliest memories of the narrator when he was five years old in 1807, and notices 80-year-old Ernest Pontifex. At the time of writing, the narrator is also 80 years old. This is the story of the Pontifex family, spanning four generations, from grandfather Ernest to his great-grandchildren. On the death of Ernest’s wife at 84, Ernest, a man of tradition, ‘sent around a penny loaf to every inhabitant of the village according to custom … the loaf was called a dole.’ He died a year later at the age of 85, knowing in the morning that he would be dead by sunset.  Ernest’s son George – ‘rich, universally respected and of an excellent n...

MARTINA NICOLLS is an international aid and development consultant, and the  author of:-  Similar But Different in the Animal Kingdom (2017), The Shortness of Life: A Mongolian Lament (2015), Liberia’s Deadest Ends (2012), Bardot’s Comet (2011), Kashmir on a Knife-Edge (2010) and The Sudan Curse (2009).

Christo, the famed artist, has installed a temporary sculpture, called The Mastaba, in Hyde Park, London,  right in the middle of the Serpentine Lake.  Construction on the sculpture began on 3 April 2018. The installation will float on the Serpentine Lake from 18 June to 23 September 2018. The installation is composed of oil drums – oil barrels. This is Christo’s first major public outdoor work in the United Kingdom.  “For a few months The London Mastaba will be a part of the Serpentine Lake and its natural and urban surroundings,” said Christo. “I am excited to realise this temporary outdoor sculpture in the UK this summer. Like with all of my projects, the construction, maintenance and removal of artwork will be entirely funded by me through the sale of my original works of art. The London Mastaba in Hyde Park will be absolutely free to the public—no tickets, no reservations and no owners. It will belong to everyone until it's gone.”  Christo’s...