cliffordthurlow

[cliffordthurlow]

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…

[cliffordthurlow]

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…

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BOB DYLAN - EVERYTHING IS BROKEN

1989. Cracks appear in the Berlin Wall. The Soviet Union hoists the white flag. The oil tanker Exxon Valdez runs aground in Prince William Sound, spilling crude across pristine Alaska. Thousands of pro-democracy students slaughtered as tanks roll into China’s Tiananmen Square. Everything was breaking. Now everything is broken. Brexit. Trump. Johnson. Le Pen. Meloni. Melting ice caps. Rising sea…

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TEACHING ENGLISH IN BARCELONA

When I was teaching English in Barcelona in 1984, people lowered their voice if the subject of General Franco came up. He had died almost a decade before in 1975, but it seemed as if he was listening still from the portrait in uniform that continued to hang on the wall in nearly every bar. Barcelona from Park Guell. My job with a school called Interlog took me every afternoon across the grid of…

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WHAT IS A GENTLEMEN’S AGREEMENT?

What is a gentlemen’s agreement? It’s a look, an imperceptible nod of the head, rippled brows – an understanding that needs no signature nor handshake between parties who don’t trust each other but know a gentlemen’s agreement may be mutually beneficial. Labour Leader Keir Starmer. Photo: Phil Noble/Reuters/Alamy Kier Starmer must have made a gentlemen’s agreement with Times and Sun boss Rupert…

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LEONARD COHEN - THE MAN WHO SAW THE ANGELS FALL

The new biography of Leonard Cohen – ‘The Man Who Saw the Angels Fall’ – is the definitive memoir of one of the most important poets, songwriters and thinkers of our times. Writer Christophe Lebold spent twenty years researching his subject and grew close to Leonard spending time with him in Los Angeles not long before he died in 2016. The book was first published in France to a plethora of…

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THE CLOUD OF THE AMERICAN DREAM

Americans grow up under the cloud of the American Dream, a way of life and a set of beliefs that lead to disappointment and dissatisfaction. It is commonly thought in the United States that ‘anyone’ can be President. This is untrue. There are millions of people and only one president every 4 or 8 years. Of course, belief in the system is more powerful than reality of how it works. The American…

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THE LAST CARAVAGGIO

The National Gallery in London had no idea when they titled their summer show ‘The Last Caravaggio’ that another painting by the Renaissance renegade had mysteriously appeared. Crowds lined up across Trafalgar Square to file into a darkened room to see ‘The Martyrdom of Saint Ursula,’ painted 1610 and thought to be the last Caravaggio after a letter was discovered in the 1980s describing the…