Read Will’s opinion piece on the monarchy at the Daily Beast.
On Damien Hirst
“Arguably, never in the decline and fall of the avant-garde had so few sold out for so much so quickly. From 1997, when the Royal Academy daringly mounted the Sensation exhibition, in less than five years, the likes of Hirst, Tracey Emin, Marc Quinn et al., went from maybe scandalising to definitely cashing in: far more than the Britpop bands, it’s these lite – and often quite high – artists who personified the Blair era, with its serious comfort when it came to being seriously rich sugar-wrapped in social conscience.”
On Glastonbury
Will’s latest New European column takes aim at “that Kumbh Mela of the British bourgeoisie”.
On the n-word
“Obviously, written words are received in a different context to spoken ones – but both allow for discursive explanation. If I teach Conrad’s Heart of Darkness, I give a trigger warning to students about the ten instances of the n-word in the text, but I also reserve the right – should we be discussing one of the relevant passages – to utter the word. In practice, I don’t think that has ever occurred (Huckleberry Finn might prove more problematic, since it’s bedizened with n-words), but the principle remains that to render any word unspeakable and un-writable, is to impose totalitarian double-think rather than advance the cause of racial justice.”
Reconsidering cannabis and the law
A Point of View on cannabis on Radio 4 can be heard here.
On the Kardashians
Will’s latest New European column has landed.
The Bomb Makes a Comeback
Listen to Will’s A Point of View tonight at 8.50pm on Radio 4, The Bomb Makes a Comeback. “Many people think of this as the two thousand and twenty-second year of the Christian era – I’m more inclined to view it as the sixtieth of the Arkhipov one …”
Self on Sebald
Twenty years after the death of WG Sebald, Will talks to Sebald biographer Carole Angier and his former friend, the poet Stephen Wells exploring the archive devoted to one of the great writers of the late 20th Century on Radio 4 at 8pm (GMT) here.
Are the Oscars obsolete?
On misopedia: the British attitude to children
You can listen to Will’s latest Point of View on Radio 4 from earlier this evening here.
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