cliffordthurlow

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SPANISH CIVIL WAR: MUTINY ON THE LINARIA

The steamship Linaria lay moored in the winter fog drifting over Boston Harbour, her black hull streaked with salt, the boilers cooling after the long haul from Mariupol. Coal dust clung to her plates like soot on a miner’s skin. Seagulls wheeled above the masts, their cries lost against the rattle of chains and the muffled shouts of longshoremen stamping their boots against the cold. The Linaria…

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AN IMPORTANT NEW NOVEL – Review of We Shall Pass

Roger Cottrell reviews We Shall Pass Published by Luath Press, Edinburgh.   When I first talked to fellow Sub-Stack blogger Clifford Thurlow about his important new novel, We Shall Pass, I was immediately struck by how few novels of quality there are on the subject of the Spanish Revolution and Civil War. This is particularly true since Hemmingway’s For Whom the Bell Tolls, which is also a love…

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A STORY IN STRONG PRIMARY COLOURS - We Shall Pass Review

JSC Rebbeck reviews We Shall Pass, published by Luath Press, Edinburgh. Having recently read We Shall Pass, I wanted more. I wanted the story to continue. Like one of the volunteers, I found myself embedded in the hills looking on at the terror of war – I didn’t want more of that, for it was all too stark and terrifying. Having read neither Ernest Hemingway’s ‘For Whom the Bell Tolls’ or George…

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BARCELONA AND THE SPANISH CIVIL WAR

Writers are either morning people who start work with the day’s second cup of coffee or night people who sip iced whisky in the moonlight. I’m the morning type and have always envied the more quixotic lunar scribblers with their absinthe eyes and knowing expressions. When I moved to Barcelona in 1984, I kept my mornings free for my literary endeavours and worked part-time for a company called…

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WRITING WE SHALL PASS

We Shall Pass was a story that danced in the back of my mind for years before I finally put metaphorical pen to paper. With Catherine Skira Sagnier – We Shall Pass ‘presentation’ at Galeria Patrick Domken in Cadaques. Set among the British Battalion of the International Brigades during the Spanish Civil War, the novel uses politics not as a puzzle to explain, but as a framework to explore…

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Fast-paced and action-packed - Review of WE SHALL PASS

Lin Rose Clark reviews We Shall Pass, published by Luath Press, Edinburgh.   Last March of the International Brigade – photo Robert Capa   If you’re looking for a fast-paced, action-packed tale with strongly drawn characters and a dramatic plot, this book could well be for you. Set for the most part in Spain during the Spanish Civil War, We Shall Pass traces the steps of three very different…

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WHO INVENTED THE SUBMARINE?

There is some dispute over exactly who invented the submarine, with the British, Dutch and Catalans all claiming the honour. The Ictíneo Man has always wanted to fly through the air and breathe under water. Images painted in 2000 BC on the temple walls in Thebes show men spear fishing using hollow sticks like snorkels. According to the ‘History of the Peloponnesian War,’ at the siege of Tyre…

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BLACKSHIRTS MARCH ON CABLE STREET

Thurlow at the London Book Fair When the Blackshirts marched on Cable Street in the mainly Jewish quarter of East London on Sunday 4 October 1936, the people from the poor modest houses along the way built barricades to keep the invaders out. When the police tried to dismantle the wall of dustbins, hand carts and old furniture, the people of Cable Street raised their fists and fought back. Women…

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BEING A MOD IN SWINGING LONDON

Being a Mod in Swinging London seemed like the only thing to be at 16. I was a boy crossing the bridge to the man, and I was about to discover that justice and injustice are divided by the same narrow gap. The Mods are Coming As a Mod, I had all the gear, a Vespa GS 160, a white one with blue stripes on the bubbles, and a long aerial topped by a squirrel tail. No helmet, naturally. I wore a…

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A COMPLETE UNKNOWN

While I watched the Bob Dylan biopic ‘A Complete Unknown’ at the Picturehouse in Piccadilly, a couple of times tears misted my eyes. This morning, I got mail from my friend Jim Arnold who, by chance, had seen the film that same night and, he too, welled up in tears. Why? I am really not sure. Perhaps those four defining years from when Bob Dylan arrived in New York in 1961 brought a sense to us…

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THE LUCRETIUS PROBLEM

The Lucretius Problem is believing the worst thing that has happened is the worst thing that can happen. In the present age, a ridiculous assumption. Beyond Graffiti: Mural by Richard Bagguley. This conundrum belongs to Titus Lucretius Carus, a Roman philosopher born a century before Christ and known for the iconic poem ‘On the Nature of Things’ – De rerum natura. He believed in evolution –…

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NOT QUITE GOOD ENOUGH

Writers are haunted by the feeling that they’re not quite good enough. As soon as you compose a single sentence, doubt sets in. Does it need that adjective (probably not). Should it be two sentences, not one; more rhythmic, more alliterative? Less alliterative? The David Someone clever said the three secrets of writing are: editing, editing and editing. I have done that. Taken a 500 word essay…

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KEITH CHEESEMAN AND THE MISSING £135 MILLION

On a sunny May morning in 1990, a bank courier strode out of the Bank of England and was robbed at knifepoint of 301 bearer bonds worth £292 million. It was the biggest theft in British history. An hour before the heist, Keith Cheeseman – a well-known fence who had served time for bank robbery – got a call from Henry Nunn, a dodgy lawyer connected to London’s underworld. He invited Keith to a…

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SALVADOR DALI AND ULTRA VIOLET

Salvador Dalí and Ultra Violet were often described as lovers by gossip writers and hacks who didn’t know Dalí did not have lovers. Ultra Violet with Salvador Dalí. The claim was even made by Anita Gates in the New York Times and Emmanuelle Jardonnet in Le Monde in their obituaries when Isabelle Collin Defresne died in 2014 at the age of 79.    Dalí, according to Dalí, only had sex twice, once…

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REVIEW - THE MAN WHO SAW THE ANGELS FALL

The biography of a great poet, author and lyricist (musician, actor, raconteur) demands rare skill to meld these disparate elements into a satisfactory whole. If there are occasional cracks to let the light in, so much the better. Christophe Lebold with ‘The Man Who Saw the Angels Fall’ has done just that with this expansive, perceptive, often moving memoir of Leonard Cohen, one of the giants –…

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SMUGGLING DUCHAMP OUT OF SPAIN

Smuggling Duchamp out of Spain was never going to be easy under the stony gaze of the Guardia Civil and one can only assume that the 20th century’s most enigmatic artist would have enjoyed the ride. Tudor Davies from Christie’s unfolds the Boîte-en-valise. Marcel Duchamp died on 2 October 1968, briefly after an exhibition of his work at Galería Cadaqués in Spain. The show was not to sell his…

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THE INVISIBLE BUDDHA

The invisible Buddha can only be seen through the third eye of the imagination. The Buddha is in us and around us. The eyes of the Buddha see the past, the present, the future – everything that is there and everything that is not there. Artist Salvatore Garau with the invisible Buddha The Italian artist Salvatore Garau has taken the concept a stage further by creating an invisible Buddha that…