(SPOILER ALERT) The ending of ‘Mad Men’ is deliberately ambiguous. It’s not frustratingly ambiguous in the way that the ending to ‘The Sopranos’ is – this finale’s ambiguity is far more satisfying, and its satisfaction lies in the way that, whichever way you choose to read our last sight of Don Draper (and they are … Read more
As I watched Paul Weller perform at Glastonbury last night my wife said that he ‘was looking good’. Being a secure kind of guy I had no problems with this undoubtedly true observation, but when she followed it with the question ‘how old is he now?’ I felt a little more uneasy, as contemplation of … Read more
Noah Baumbach’s latest film While We’re Young fires comic warning shots at both the young and the old. For the old, represented by failing documentary film-maker Josh and wife Cornelia, it suggests that if you’re about to have a mid-life crisis it’s best not to have it in the company of hipsters ( Beware Hipsters!) … Read more
‘The Year of Reading Dangerously’ by Andy Miller reminds me of the great game in David Lodge’s brilliant comic novel ‘Changing Places’ – Humiliation. It’s a game played by English Literature academics – you name a work of literature you haven’t read and get a point for everyone else who has. It’s ages since … Read more
It’s come as a great relief to learn that a recent survey has revealed that 80% of those who use subtitles when watching TV are not deaf or hard of hearing. I am, it would seem, not alone, and it’s reassuring to know that my increasing subtitle-dependency does not mean that other writing is on … Read more
In what must have come as a surprise to many, John Carey, in his review of ‘How To Be Good’, compared Nick Hornby to Dostoevsky. Talking about ‘The Idiot’, Carey observed that Hornby’s novel is ‘shorter, funnier, just as sharp in its human observation, and more realistic.’ High praise indeed, and coming from Carey, a … Read more
There are many books I don’t get ( see, for example, ‘What I don’t get about Stoner’ – https://www.bernardokeeffe.com/?p=262), but I was surprised last week to discover that I might have been misreading my all-time favourite for many years. The book in question is David McKee’s ‘Not Now Bernard’, and it’s my favourite for several reasons: 1. It … Read more
Watching Richard Linklater’s brilliant ‘Boyhood’ left me asking the impossible question posed in that old Fairport Convention song -“Who Knows Where the Time Goes?” The film shows a boy growing into a young man, but it does so by filming him and his family in real time. They all, literally, age before your eyes and … Read more
Thwack! Thwack! Thwack! As I grow older one of the sounds which gives me increasing satisfaction is the thud of books hitting my bedroom wall. This is not, I hasten to add, the result of a strange literary fetish. It’s what happens when I decide I can go no further with whatever it is I … Read more
How do you teach irony? It’s a question I’ve asked myself many times over the years and the only answer I can offer with any degree of honesty is – with great difficulty. There’s a simple reason for this. With irony you either get it or you don’t, and trying to help those who don’t … Read more
Not many records survived my ill-judged mid-1980’s vinyl sell-off, but one entire oeuvre made the cut – the series of 1970’s albums by Pete Atkin with lyrics by Clive James. There are several reasons why the Pete and Clive LP’s were considered worth saving. It wasn’t just that I spent many of my formative years … Read more
I have recently spent several long weekends with Leonard Cohen. Not in person, you understand, but even so I feel I now know him much better than I did. In the unlikely event that we were ever to get together for a real-life weekend (and time and circumstances seem to make this increasingly unlikely) I’m … Read more