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@lrb.co.uk‘Over the course of a century and a half the English effectively erased the old society from the island’s lowlands, founding a Germanic enclave in what had been Celtic land for more than a millennium.’
Pablo Scheffer on Britain after the Romans left.
@lrb.co.uk‘There is no way to “bone up” on Anthony Burgess. Where do you establish a first hesitant foothold? His 33 works of fiction? His wide-ranging literary journalism? His screenplays for film and television? His works for piano, his chamber music and concertos?’
Ian Penman
www.lrb.co.uk/the-paper/v4...
@lrb.co.uk‘Labour promised that 35 per cent of new developments would be affordable, with most of the homes let at social rents. In practice, “affordable” is a weasel word.’
D.K. Renton on Labour v. the Greens in Bristol.
@lrb.co.uk‘The Second Empire did not turn Frenchwomen into citizens. If anything, the era saw an increase in political and civil inequality between the sexes.’
David Todd on what Napoleon III did (and didn’t do) for democracy.
@lrb.co.uk‘The idea that AI was an existential threat seemed faintly ludicrous in 2024: how could a program that simply issued a response to a prompt become a malevolent force? In the last few weeks, the way that process might begin has become clearer.’
Paul Taylor on agents.
@lrb.co.uk‘A decade ago, donations of a million pounds or more represented 1 per cent of party funding. Now they account for more than a third. But even by these standards Reform’s reliance on large donors is unusual.’
@petergeoghegan.bsky.social on party fundraising.
@lrb.co.uk‘In a capitalist society, you also have a degree of unfreedom, but it comes out of the complicity and of the everyday acts of millions of people.’
@leaypi.bsky.social on how we get back to ‘committed literature’, on the podcast.
@lrb.co.uk‘By translating the realm of aristocratic female experience into and out of the idiom and conventions of Homeric epic, he makes the characters seem at once larger than life and less than human.’
Freya Johnston on Alexander Pope’s empathy.
@lrb.co.uk‘It is hard to imagine any other painter or sculptor, living or dead, ever attracting this kind of attention, but it is equally hard to attribute it to Leonardo’s artistic talent.’
Charles Hope on the commoditisation of Leonardo da Vinci.
@lrb.co.uk‘Though it is presented as the kind of scenario planning that goes on in military staff offices, Masala’s approach is closer to that of a television scriptwriter imagining Nato meetings.’
@tomstevenson.bsky.social on war-fi.
@lrb.co.uk‘Gandhi in 1946 was never alone; visitors were numerous, journalists hovered. He held interfaith prayer sessions and sat with both Hindu and Muslim households. He kept up his daily quota of spinning cloth.’
Raghu Karnad on Gandhi and Partition.
@lrb.co.uk‘The Patriot Platformers won’t have read 𝘉𝘭𝘢𝘤𝘬 𝘉𝘢𝘨, then, so they’ll have missed its diagnosis of men as melodramatic, childlike, pitiful and dangerous.’
Blake Morrison reads Luke Kennard’s Booker-shortlisted novel.
@lrb.co.uk‘Despite building cities, roads, ports and villas that surpassed anything constructed in the next millennium, it seems that the Romans never established themselves in Britain quite as enthusiastically as they did elsewhere.’
Pablo Scheffer on Britain after the Romans.
@lrb.co.uk‘Most people, even if they like bad books or music, don’t like them because they’re bad but because they think they’re good. Why, then, are some bad movies so much fun?’
Malin Hay on what makes a film flop.
@lrb.co.uk‘He always laid great emphasis on his Irish roots, as if he were by nature a rebel, a turncoat, an artistic recusant, joylessly exiled in the oppressive mainland kingdom.’
Ian Penman on Anthony Burgess.
@lrb.co.uk‘When I spoke to people in Bristol I raised the subject of the new Renters’ Rights Act, which came into force in May, removing the power of private landlords to evict without cause. No one gave Labour much credit for it.’
D.K. Renton on Labour v. the Greens in Bristol.
www.lrb.co.uk/the-paper/v4...
@lrb.co.uk‘In fixating on the threat of “foreign” money, Labour has implicitly accepted that plutocrats can buy politics, so long as they are on the electoral roll.’
@petergeoghegan.bsky.social on party fundraising.
@lrb.co.ukOn our Close Readings subscription podcast, Rosemary Hill and Markman Ellis, professor of 18th-century studies at Queen Mary University of London, explore London’s emergence in the 1700s as a brutal city of consumption and cultural innovation. Listen to an extract:
podcasts.apple.com/gb/podcast/c...
@lrb.co.uk‘There were parents accompanying their children as well as plenty of university students. One, Alex, held a sign that said: “Too young to be listened to, but adult enough to be gassed.”’
Brian Ng at the student protests in Paris, from the blog.
@lrb.co.uk‘In Florence’s main art history library there are about 35 shelves of books devoted purely to Leonardo, and this doesn’t include the vast production of articles about him in academic journals. The study of Leonardo has become a self-sustaining industry.’
Charles Hope:
