Category: Culture

During my first year of university, I noticed a curious trend appear among several students: film cameras had become an accessory to anything interesting occurring in uni life, anything from cheap disposables to the vintage professionals. The accessibility of mobile phones should make film cameras seem clumsy and expensive, and yet here they are at […]

It has been more than 50 years since the publication of S.E. Hinton’s first novel ‘The Outsiders’. Set in 1960s Oklahoma, ‘The Outsiders’ is a moving coming-of-age story surrounding the gang rivalry between lower-class ‘Greasers’ and upper-class ‘Socials’. Given the big societal changes that have happened since then and how dated, for example, the social […]

Image description: a netsuke cat I picked up this book expecting to learn a lot about netsuke, the 264 tiny Japanese sculptures that ceramicist Edmund De Waal inherited from his beloved uncle Ignace, known fondly as Iggie. Netsuke are little ornaments, usually ivory or wood, that were worn from the belt as part of traditional […]

  My dearest Solomans, You’ve been my one and only since freshers’. I cemented our love with a loyalty card, each smiley stamp bringing a sense of achievement I have yet to experience in other aspects of my life. But I have a confession. I didn’t mean to do what I did, you have to […]

Let’s assume you’re a fresher. If you’re actually reading this in print form, then let’s face it, you probably are. Having just arrived in a new, unfamiliar environment, and needing to be heavily caffeinated to get any work done, you contemplate your options. You’ve found the big coffee chains in the town centre, but you […]

Brad Pitt is having a bit of a moment in 2019. Following on from his star turn in one of the other biggest films of the year, Once Upon a Time in Hollywood, he now carries the much-hyped Ad Astra on his hunky shoulders. Both performances are studies in restraint, portraying capable yet closed-off professional […]

In certain instances, it is hard not to allow the life of an artist to cast a shadow over their creative output. Sometimes it’s impossible. With an album as deeply personal as Nick Cave and the Bad Seeds’ Ghosteen, released the 4th of October, the listener is obliged to confront the tragedy from whence its […]

From their beginnings as a small university band in Dundee, to touring internationally, and releasing the most played song on UK radio of the 21st century, it seems fair to say that the Snow Patrol have done rather well for themselves. Ahead of the release of their eighth studio album, Reworked, marking twenty-five years as […]

  Forgive me Father, for I have sinned. I am a Gen-Z-Millennial cusp, and I do not like avocados. Or rather, I do not share my generation’s fanatical fetish for the green fleshy fruit. Done well, they’re fine. I could take them or leave them. Done badly, they taste like texture.   My mother and […]

I was curious to see what Simon Bird (of Inbetweeners fame) would make of his directorial debut. I expected a comedy, but perhaps not one as touching as this. Set in an “everytown” somewhere in the Midlands, the film’s plot is simple. Daniel lives with his divorced mother in an English suburb and can’t wait […]

From Dracula (1958) to The Devil Rides Out (1968), in their 82 year history, Hammer Films Productions have produced some of the most iconic British horror films released in the 20th century. The Man Who Could Cheat Death isn’t one of those films. One of the lesser known entries of the production company’s output, it’s […]

“Well they are a kind of dumplings but they really aren’t.” This is was me almost every day when my foreign friends came to visit me in Shanghai. It always frustrates me that I can only use the word “dumpling” to name all Chinese foods with a piece of dough wrapped around some filling. The […]

  It was another cold afternoon in the fridge. Danish Pastry was chilling alone on his shelf, which was just how he liked it. He enjoyed being the pastry with all the secrets. The stupid humans had left him in there over night. He laughed and lit a cigarette. No flakey crust for them. Things […]

  It’s surreal to think the term is about to start. After four months away, and it being well into October, it seems ridiculous to say it’s the end of summer. The holiday is so long the new school year almost feels like New Year’s (I am pulling at strings here). Point is it’s a […]

Image description: the Salon Ovale de la Princesse in the Musée des Archives Nationales in Paris “Je n’aime pas trop les musées” —”I don’t like museums very much”—is how Paul Valéry begins ‘Le Problème des Musées’, his critique of museum culture published in 1923. In the paragraphs that follow, Valéry, a modernist French poet, justifies […]

The National Gallery first allowed visitors to take photographs of its paintings in 2014, basically because they realised that the rise of smartphone use meant it was just too difficult to prohibit. Many art lovers vocalised their disappointment, claiming that letting photography into the sacred gallery space was a rude violation of quiet looking. Photography, […]

A pervasive perception of medieval literature is that it is simplistic – in plot, character types, and morality. The themes of medieval writing are, indeed, simpler than modern writing, as a result of the state of post-1800 (modern) literature. Much of it has descended into pretentiously executed existentialism (Pig Tales, Marie Darrieussecq) and lazy dystopian […]

Image description: One of Athirty4’s plaster light switches Over the past few weeks, the appearance of household light switches, placed surreptitiously around the city, has prompted discussion amongst students; plastered on lamp posts, street signs and post boxes, while the switches have generated amusement on account of their quirkiness, the question remains as to their […]

Who would come up in your mind when you think about rock bands? Queen, Rolling Stones, The Beatles, Bring Me the Horizon, Vampire Weekend… All those big names from Europe and America that have thrilled generations and have dominated the global rock music industry, in which we can hardly find any Asian faces. Can you […]