Monthly Archives: July 2019

What Soho Wore

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What Soho Wore. 15 July-25 September 2016, The Photographers’ Gallery London.

From July 2016, Nina Manandhar, photographer and founder of What We Wore archive project, will be in residence at The Photographers’ Gallery mapping the hidden cultural history of Soho through people’s photography and stories. As independent clubs and shops are increasingly lost from the centre of the city, What Soho Wore explores the area’s rich cultural history and the role that photography has had within the multiple scenes, movements and communities that have made Soho what it was and is today.

The images and stories will be presented on The Media Wall, online and during a final discussion event on 18 September.

[This picture of me (left) and my mate Yannick, taken in September 1981, was part of the exhibition and the book that had preceded it. It also appears in the video below.]

What Soho Wore – an interview with Nina Manandhar from The Photographers’ Gallery on Vimeo.

Finnish

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Pekka Hakala, “европейские страны видят в английском угрозу национальным языкам.” Helsingin Sanomat, 5 November 2018:

… Давний противник использования английского языка — Франция. Писатель и университетский преподаватель Эндрю Гэлликс (Andrew Gallix) связывает щепетильность французов с окончанием Семилетней войны и подписанием в 1763 году Парижского мирного договора, в соответствии с которым Франция уступала Великобритании колонии в Канаде и на Карибских островах. …

The Belly of Paris

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Nick Lander, “Vantre (Not Ventre).” Jancis Robinson, 22 July 2019:

In his recently published and well-reviewed book, the Anglo-French writer turned editor Andrew Gallix explores a fascinating theme.

He quotes Oscar Wilde from The Picture of Dorian Grey: ‘When good Americans die, they move to Paris’.

Gallix’s collection of contributions from over 70 authors is entitled We’ll Never Have Paris. Published by Repeater in the US and Penguin Random House in the UK, his book seeks to explore the myths that surround this wonderfully attractive and romantic city. His thesis is that Paris can just as easily be disappointing as fulfilling.

It is a shame that among all the well-known contributors there is no one whose speciality is writing about restaurants, the phenomenon which Paris at the turn of the 19th century gave to the world, and a common reason why visitors to this website also visit The City of Light.

Beauvilliers, Lavenne and Veron et Baron were three of the most prestigious restaurants in the early 1800s in Paris. As well as the good food and wine they offered, they were also able to provide a further reason for the many British then in Paris to visit them: they offered a rare opportunity to watch the French at play.

Had I been asked to contribute, I am afraid that I would have had to end any paean of praise to Paris and its restaurants on a disappointed note. There are so many good places to eat, so many that evoke happy memories of my times in the city, but I am always at a loss to answer the following question: why are so many open only Monday to Friday and closed at the weekend when most tourists are there?…

Paid by the Impenetrable Paragraph

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(This is priceless: the nincompoop can’t even get my name right!)

David Blackburn, “Pigeons, Pros and Amateurs.” The Spectator, 11 January 2012

… Reading the book made me recall the story of Kingsley Amis throwing a copy of his son Martin’s book, Money, across the room in frustration, and I wondered how the old devil might have dispatched of Kelman’s opus.

All of which brings me to this piece by Alex Gallix about the death of literature. This exhaustive and exhausting navel gaze will irritate all but the interested, but its value lies in sketching the recent history of literary theory. Equally, it’s a fine example of what our friends at the Omnivore think is wrong with literary criticism and book reviewing as one commenter on Gallix’s piece cuttingly put it, ‘Was he paid by the impenetrable paragraph?’. Theory often has that effect on people.