Philip Hensher
Recently by Philip Hensher
Philip Hensher: A Laureate's poems are all that matter
Monday, 4 May 2009
You get a few hundred bottles of sack, or dry sherry, and the unlimited scorn of most of your colleagues. You are required, by newspapers if not by royalty, to produce a lyric effusion whenever a royal prince is born, marries or dies, which is then ripped apart by journalists. And you have the ineffable boredom, I dare say, of attendance at all sorts of official events, and having to talk, endlessly, to people who have read nothing apart from government briefing papers for decades. Poet Laureate is not a tempting job.
Philip Hensher: Let's celebrate oysters and asparagus
Monday, 27 April 2009
A bit more than 20 years ago, I was in the market in Cambridge at the middle of June. We'd been gorging ourselves on local asparagus for the last few weeks and I headed to the vegetable stall. There was none to be seen, and I asked the stallholder if she would be getting some tomorrow.
Philip Hensher: What worked in Venezuela won't do so here
Monday, 20 April 2009
The Venezuelan system of music education known as El Sistema has been much written about, usually in greatly admiring terms. In the past three decades, a programme of music education has reached deep into the favelas, giving hundreds of thousands of children the opportunity to learn an instrument, and to study in the demanding disciplines of classical music. Hundreds of youth orchestras have spring up, and, it has been argued, the many hours of music teaching and education which Venezuelan youth go through get results in the shape of discipline and commitment to education.
Philip Hensher: Museums are being wrecked by piped music
Monday, 13 April 2009
At the Victoria and Albert Museum's new Baroque show, I was trying to concentrate on what might strike some people as an unnecessarily complicated object when, quite suddenly, the band struck up above my head.
Philip Hensher: What would we do without Dame Viv?
Monday, 6 April 2009
The developing depression in the global economy is having many disastrous effects. But surely one of the lesser ones is that the inhabitants of Moscow are no longer going to be able to buy the mini-crini, the ripped pirate-style jacket, the safety-pinned T-shirt or any other of Vivienne Westwood's creations.
Philip Hensher: Does anyone really understand the National Curriculum?
Friday, 3 April 2009
Teachers must live in dread of the man from the ministry making a visit
Philip Hensher: Wrestling with the outer limits of language
Monday, 30 March 2009
Language is interesting not just when it is exotic and static, but when it is in the process of development
Philip Hensher: Give us a nice day out and we're happy
Monday, 23 March 2009
'What a beautiful day," I said, looking out of the window of my partner's house in Geneva. Lake Geneva was gorgeous in the sunlight; beyond the rooftops, the immense jet of water was sparkling against the blue sky. The mountains beyond the city were brilliantly capped with snow. "Let's not moulder inside watching Battlestar Galactica. Let's have a nice day out."
Philip Hensher: On a fast track to joined-up thinking
Thursday, 19 March 2009
Jargon is how the professions like to distinguish themselves
Phlip Hensher: Students who think they can do no wrong
Monday, 16 March 2009
The student was in his third semester at university. He hadn't turned up to half the seminars he was supposed to and I hadn't seen his face more than once or twice at the compulsory lectures. Now he had made an outraged appointment to see me to ask why I'd given his end-of-module assignment a third.
Philip Hensher: The legend of Arthur must leave no legacy
Monday, 9 March 2009
In 1972, during one of a long series of skirmishes between the National Union of Mineworkers and Conservative governments, a Communist leader of the South Wales miners, Dai Francis, trying to organise flying pickets, had a call from Arthur Scargill.
Philip Hensher: So sharp they've cut themselves
Monday, 2 March 2009
Tragic news from the coalface. Arts administrators for Arts Council England (ACE) are facing a grim future as their traditional occupations have been declared to be no longer economic.
Philip Hensher: An ambitious author and a banned book
Monday, 23 February 2009
A week or so ago, the world awoke to news of a new literary martyr. The Observer journalist Geraldine Bedell has written a novel about one of the Emirates, shortly to be released. Where better to launch such a book than at the first Dubai Literary Festival? Plans were made; an invitation to Miss Bedell was dispatched. But then the Dubai Literary Festival had second thoughts.
Philip Hensher: Been there, done that is our dilemma
Monday, 16 February 2009
'What about Uzbekistan?" Zaved said. I thought hard. "Mosques," I said. "Silk road. Bokhara. Samarkand – is that in Uzbekistan? And there were those two British officers that got themselves decapitated by an Amir. We could go and see their graves, I suppose. Connolly and Stoddart. I just wonder –" "What?" "I just don't know if it's totally the place I want to go on my honeymoon."
Philip Hensher: Wikipedia is beautiful, but never perfect
Monday, 9 February 2009
Wikipedia is surely one of the most brilliant ideas of the century so far. Starting with a blank sheet on 15 January, 2001, Larry Sanger and Jimmy Wales invited internet users to write an online encyclopedia of unlimited scope, without supervisory editing. The users would write, debate, edit, and supplement the individual entries.
Philip Hensher: Sorry Wendy, but we need to keep the Poet Laureate
Monday, 2 February 2009
Wendy Cope has a curious sideline to her career as a likeable poet. It consists of denying that she has any intention of becoming Poet Laureate. Bored journalists in search of a story have their regular fall-backs. In the old days, you could phone up Sir Anthony Beaumont-Dark MP and ask him about anything from the immigration figures to the Eurovision Song Contest. These days, you can phone that entertaining fellow the Bishop of Rochester and ask him about the sanctity of marriage, or anything at all, really. Or you could phone Wendy and ask her if she wants to be Poet Laureate. She says no thank you, and there's half a page filled.
Philip Hensher: The BBC is too impartial to suffering
Monday, 26 January 2009
During the 22 days of the Israeli assaults on Gaza, around 1,300 Palestinians, according to both local and international sources, were killed. This included over 400 children under 18 and over 100 women. Israeli shells hit schools, heavily built-up areas and the UN Relief and Works Agency headquarters, killing many and knocking out food and medical supply warehouses. The UN, Red Cross and Israeli human rights agencies have complained that food aid, medics and rescue services have been prevented from reaching those in need.
Philip Hensher: The religious find a friend in the law
Monday, 12 January 2009
There's surely something very strange about asking the Advertising Standards Authority whether there is a God or not. Under the direction of Lord (Chris) Smith, the former publishing director of Hello! magazine, the managing director of Boots Opticians, the Poet Laureate and other members of the ASA council are being asked to rule on a question which has occupied philosophers for centuries. The only member of the board who, I think, has any claim of expertise in the area is one Gareth Jones, the professor of Christian Theology at Canterbury Christ Church University. He must feel that his day has finally arrived.
Philip Hensher: Shakespeare, Dickens and Palin. Discuss
Monday, 5 January 2009
Michael Palin is a kindly and intelligent soul, but one thing I doubt he would ever claim to be is a pillar of English literature. A few years ago, at the behest of a television company, he travelled from North Pole to South Pole, and produced a spin-off book, with pictures. I'm sure it was very entertaining; now, however, it is being asked to provide an introduction to English literature as a set book for thousands of GCSE students. I wonder whether a telly spin-off can really be expected to do that job.
Philip Hensher: Recycling titles? It's fine by me
Friday, 2 January 2009
A new novel by Sarah Waters is always going to cause great excitement, and I'm looking forward to her new ghost story immensely. But I was taken aback to find that it is going to be called The Little Stranger.
Philip Hensher: Glastonbury's internet fix: use crystals
Monday, 29 December 2008
Do you know how wi-fi works? No, me neither. You sort of plonk your computer down in a coffee shop and switch it on. And then there's a sort of magic box thingy somewhere in the vicinity and it connects, I think, in some kind of magical invisible sort of way with, er, whatever's inside your computer. And then, bingo, off you go. You can write this morning's Facebook update without ever plugging anything in. Amazing.
Philip Hensher: This hatred will not defeat love
Wednesday, 24 December 2008
On the one hand, there are those who struggle to save the rainforests, with all their diversity, complexity and life. On the other, there are those who fight to oppress and erase that familiar and omnipresent human quirk known as homosexuality.
Philip Hensher: Please can I be Nigella's friend?
Monday, 22 December 2008
I don't know about you, but we've been enjoying Nigella Lawson's hired friends so much we think they ought to make a sitcom about them. You know the ones I mean. Nigella, in the course of her multi-evening Christmas spectacular, has been slaving in a négligée over some white-trash pot dish – turkey stewed in 7-UP can't be far away. She sprinkles some random coriander over the top, and hands it out to her guests. The Hired Friends Of Nigella Lawson. Scrub the bit about the sitcom. It sounds like an existential tragedy by Rainer Werner Fassbinder.
TV licence storm looming
Monday, 15 December 2008
Philip Hensher: I'm not giving in to the BBC's hired thugs
Philip Hensher: Help save the review (and the reviewer)
Thursday, 11 December 2008
Newspapers are going through a period of change, no one can doubt that. Under the pressure of the internet and its myriad contributors, the purpose of pages of criticism seems less obvious as it once was to some owners and editors. In an age where everyone is willing, it seems, to express their views for nothing, and to make them universally accessible for nothing, what is the point of paying a critic to express what is only one person's opinion?
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Columnist Comments
• Bruce Anderson: The ethical questions that society ignores
The level of moral debate in modern Britain is pathetically, contemptibly low.
• Simon Carr: A blatant crime – but no justice
There’s blood everywhere, and the attacker walks away nonchalantly.
• Joan Smith: Men, power and a reality check
Harman is right to say what she did, and millions of women are cheering her on.
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1 Jeremy Leggett: Another crunch is coming – but will the world act?
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3 Simon Carr: A blatant crime – but no justice
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5 Lord Falconer: People are fed up with the Government. We need to make changes
6 Letters: The extradition of Gary McKinnon
7 Robert Fisk: Why does life in the Middle East remain rooted in the Middle Ages?
8 Wayne Hemingway: Airbrushing is naff – even the kids know it
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1 Jeremy Leggett: Another crunch is coming – but will the world act?
2 Joan Smith: Men, power and a reality check
3 Robert Fisk: Why does life in the Middle East remain rooted in the Middle Ages?
4 Bruce Anderson: The great ethical questions that society chooses to ignore
5 David McNeill: Hiroshima history is far from sacred
6 Ed Balls: Helping children with special needs is a moral imperative
7 Dom Joly: Let's bring snowballing in from cold
8 Terence Blacker: Nimbyism should be applauded, not despised
9 Leading article: Wind power – a cautionary word
10 Eric Pickles: Totnes is just the start: the Tories' doors are wide open
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