Previous Day
Prescribing a cure for TV
His
Doctor Who revival made Russell T Davies one of the most
famous writers on TV. Now, with his beloved 'telly' in so much
difficulty, it is time to fight back, he tells
Stuart Jeffries. p
Bringing it all back home from afar
Musicians from the Irish-American and London-Irish communities are bringing an extraordinary level of creativity and a distinct understanding of the roots of the music to Irish trad, writes Siobhán Long. p
Stage is set for musical adventures
Arthur Riordan is touring his musical-comedy-sci-fi-thriller Improbable Frequency - and this time he is keeping a diary. p
Arts
The waiting goes on for the Abbey
Culture Shock Fintan O'Toole The new Abbey is unlikely to be built before 2010 - some 16 years after the formal process began pRecalling a confessional poet
On The Town Catherine Foley The American poet John Berryman, who lived in Dublin for a time in the 1960s, is recalled and celebrated in a new book, which was launched at TCD on Thursday night. pICO conquers orchestra capital
Art Scape edited by Deirdre Falvey Taking an orchestra to Germany evokes memories of coals and Newcastle, writes Derek Scally. p
Ancient art in high crosses
The high crosses of Ireland are the most enduring legacy of a
Christian past and a major contribution to medieval European art,
writes
Eileen Battersby. pOcean patterns resistant to global warming
Another Life: A still October morning; an overnight raindrop pendant from every berry. Mooching out to measure what fell, a different sound catches my ear, a snatch of football rattle. A different bird flies up from the ruby platters of the guelder rose and perches on the wire: a big, long thrush bibbed with dark spots like a chest of medals; an upright, military bearing. One brief bugle of song, then it spots me and is gone. pHotels go green
Horizons Sylvia Thompson More than 50 Irish hotels took part in Greening Irish Hotels, the first Irish initiative to reduce the environmental impact of the catering sector. p
Life and death on the margins
FICTION The spell cast by Alice Sebold's new novel begins in the very first sentence: "When all is said and done, killing my mother came easily." The positioning of those 11 words, so deliberate, yet tossed with the ease of dice spilling from a cup, establish the tone. pHiding behind the exotic
Fiction In his highly entertaining and informative selection of his journalism, Lapsed Protestant (2006), Glenn Patterson has a piece from 1994 titled Never-ending Stories in which he addresses a question which has surely become a frequent annoyance for post-Troubles writers in Northern Ireland: "What are you going to write about now?" pThe case for a change of morality
International Affairs The telephone rang in the office of the university president. It was as if an explosive device had been discovered on the campus premises and needed to be disarmed. pCapturing the moment
History In 1971, when internment in the North sent a wave of refugees across the Border, I went to Gormanston camp to see them. The officer in charge showed me proudly around the accommodation and facilities the Army had provided, stopping at a Nissan hut labelled, in large white letters, "cinema". Above this, in equally large letters, someone had scrawled the word "some". pA bookof great changes
Memoir By any standards, Lisa St Aubin de Terán has led an astonishing life. Married at 18 and swept away to Venezuela by a much older and, as it turned out, deeply unstable husband, her life ever since has been one of exotic adventure, success, failure, romance and passion. pThe power of now
Poetry Dennis O'Driscoll has long been recognised as one of our most astute, fastidious and persuasive commentators on poetry, one who has done much to uphold the standards of a rather diminished critical climate in recent years. pThe drugs do work
Memoir Asked by a friend, on the last page of this book, "If there were a pill that would instantly cure me, would I take it?" the author, Elyn Saks, replies: "In a heartbeat." This is one of a number of internal contradictions in a memoir that describes a 30-year history of acute schizophrenic relapses. These relapses usually occur when Saks decides to stop the medication which enables her to function. pNí Dhuibhne satire foxes the literati
Loose Leaves Caroline Walsh The pages of Éilís Ní Dhuibhne's new novel, Fox, Swallow, Scarecrow (Blackstaff), were being thumbed hard and fast at its launch in Dublin on Tuesday night when the author explained that it was a satire on the world of literary Dublin. pGoing Wilde in Beijing - a little bit of Ireland in Asia
As the opening of an academic centre in Beijing demonstrates, Irish Studies are gaining in popularity in China, writes Clifford Coonan pAnother way of worship
Poetry A collection of prayers that is as notable for its omissions as its surprise inclusions, writes John F Deane pA monster in full flight
Biography When the 25-year old Rudolf Nureyev made his debut at the Royal Opera House, Covent Garden in February 1962, some 70,000 applications for tickets had to be refused; at the end of the performance he and his co-star Margot Fonteyn took 23 curtain calls. Afterwards critic Clive Barnes presciently noted that Nureyev was a "single personality who catches the public's imagination". pPaperbacks
A selection of paperbacks reviewed p
Lost in the wilderness
TV Review Hilary Fannin When is a celebrity not a celebrity? Em, let me think . . . When no one has ever really heard of them? When you'd pass them by in the supermarket in a rush to buy the Cat-Lit without secretly congratulating yourself on being cool enough not to have looked like you noticed them - because you didn't? Or is it when they end up in a tent in Connemara, sponsored by a milk bottle or a chocolate bar, to skin a few rabbits and scale a few peaks for charity? pWeather will never be the same again
Radio Review Bernice Harrison Talking about the weather. It's such a handy shorthand for the banal, for empty conversations that go nowhere, and it's probably true for just about all of us with our "nights drawing in" and "chilly for this time of year" chat. p'All I've got to do now, roysh, is get Fionn so rat-orsed that tomorrow morning he won't remember offering to put me up for a few weeks'
Talking Fionn into opening up his gaff in Dalkey is a delicate enough business without Ro popping up and announcing his plans to run for elected office, writes Ross O'Carroll-Kelly p
