Author: Susheel Gokarakonda

Fascist G n Ds   The pinnacle of vulgarity And although with little familiarity My observations lack clarity Your popularity marks a grave disparity Against something that is actually worth half an ounce of my time   A fascist beast purporting to be a nice creature Displaying all those genial features Plato, Schopenhauer, Kant and […]

Founder of Hookline Books, Yvonne Barlow, talks to Claire Davis All book-lovers out there know how it feels to finish a novel that they adored, closing the book and awakening from the world you were part of during the course of reading. But do you ever wonder what the writer has gone through to get […]

‘A form in which artist can express his thoughts, however abstract they may be, or translate his obsessions exactly as he does in the contemporary essay or novel.’ This was how the manifesto of Alexandre Astruc expressed the potential of cinema in 1948. It was this idea which later grew into the French New Wave […]

The original and energising sound of one of Oxford’s choirs as listened to by Rosa Schiller-Crawhurst   New College Choir needs little introduction. Regarded as one of the best choirs in the university and indeed the world, the work of a few dedicated musicians has kept the choir at the top of its game.  Edward Higginbottom […]

Rosa Schiller-Crawhurst visits eclectic Sands Films. Nestled in amongst an imposing eighteenth century wharf set back from the bank of the Thames in Rotherhithe resides a hive of creative activity. Sands Films is a film production company of a unique nature – it runs its own studio,  costumes, cinema and all the facilities needed to […]

“Why are you reading that picture book?” asked a friend of mine as he peaked over the top of the heavy graphic novel I held in my hands. Though not particularly eloquent, this was a good question. Why was I reading Craig Thompson’s graphic masterpiece Habibi? I’d never read a graphic novel before.  In fact […]

Last year, doused in black paint, protesters gathered in the Tate Modern to perform a mass exorcism. But this wasn’t any new age witchcraft – they were attempting to rid the arts of the evils of BP and oil. BP are one of the largest sponsors of the arts in the UK. Culture Minister Ed […]

David Bailey (1938) is one of Britain’s most iconic photographers. He began his career as assistant photographer at the John French studios, after a love of natural history drew him to photography. In 1960 he started his contract with British Vogue. Together with photographers such as Terence Donovan and Brian Duffy, David Bailey observed and […]

February II   Proud January skipped, forgetting Every lesson from last year, and getting Muddled in memories, premonitions, resolutions, Unsure if now, then, or someday held a solution. He pretended to assimilate, Instead strained to communicate, Demonstrate, extricate, masturbate; Heading to nowhere and finding too late That this year was deader than the last: The […]

Rosa Schiller-Crawhurst explores the latest exhibition at the V&A In 1948 Britain hosted the Olympic Games in a world devastated and torn apart by war. These games became known as the “Austerity Games” and they began to provide the platform for British impetus for change and modernization. The Victoria and Albert Museum’s current exhibition British […]

‘Little Clarendon Street’    It wouldn’t be Wednesday without the man in the street, Shouting the big issues of the world, scaring the shit Out of every passer by, With fire in his eyes, And beer on his thighs, And scars on each cheek, but a smile on neither. – It wouldn’t be Thursday, Friday or […]

Salman Rushdie once said, speaking shortly after his Satanic Verses was burnt and banned across the globe, that “free speech is the whole thing, the ball game. Free speech is life itself.” But is censorship the death of books? It is difficult to find a country that has not, at one time or another, ripped […]