Day to day posts on this site.
A few days ago, I managed to reach an MNLA fighter called Intarhia on his satellite phone. He was in a 4×4 that was being driven across open desert, seemingly at top speed. This a transcript of our interview:
Here’s a letter I just wrote to the London Review of Books in response to an excellent essay on the future of the newspaper industry by John Lanchester, which you can read here: http://www.lrb.co.uk/v32/n24/john-lanchester/let-us-pay Dear LRB, This excellent essay is a very good example why good print journalism should, must, nay, will, I believe, survive. …
The Tap Tap is the local transport in Port au Prince, the capital of Haiti. As the country struggles with every cataclysm and curse known to a nation, it’s public transport system remains one of the beautiful in the world. How about that for a paradox?! Tap Taps are decorated with a baffling mix of…
I just learned that Rhissa Ag Ogham, one time guitarist and singer with the Touareg group Terakaft, died in a car accident a week ago. Apparently he was driving back to Tamanrasset from Libya with his father, who also died in the accident. Rhissa toured Europe with Terakaft back in 2007 and 2008, and played…
I’ve been busy translating the lyrics for the forthcoming album by Tamikrest, the band from north eastern Mali lead by the talented Ousmane Ag Moussa. If you don’t know them already check out their existing album ‘Adagh’. One thing I always suspected but now know for sure is that Ousmane is a really excellent poet.…
OK, here goes. This is the last post I upload before ‘going live’! Andymorganwrites will be born sometime tomorrow…breach, Cesarean, gas and every unholy drug under the sun!
My sis, true to form, scored 180 with her Christmas present. It was Joe Sacco’s latest tome about Palestine: ‘Footnotes In Gaza’. Now, very few people out there spur me to become a completist of their oeuvre. Lee Perry. Don Paterson. Joe Sacco. That’s about it. And let me tell you that Joe Sacco is…
I went for a walk in Ebbor Gorge yesterday. It’s a deep dank wooded gash in the Mendip Hills, about 45 minutes drive south of Bristol. Hunter gatherers used to live here. I kind of envy them. Walking up the slippery slimy rocks on the ever enclosing path up through the limestone cliffs, I could…
I went to see Jack Black’s ‘Gulliver’s Travels’ in Chichester with the family. My boy Alfie loved the action and just managed to get through the romantic disinterest. Every time the action dropped below a certain level of intensity, he became a squirming wrecking ball in the seat next to me; bouncing like a giant…
