Bologna, with its medieval city centre, dark portico galleries, and large student population is the perfect recipe for a mysterious getaway. Any visitor to Bologna who spends any time with the local Bolognesi will hear about seven secret sights hidden around the city. At risk of being shuffled off this mortal coil, some dark night, […]
Trieste, once a major international crossroads, serving as a port for the mighty Hapsburg empire, is today somewhat on the periphery. Most tourists to Italy rarely venture up to that North Eastern Corner, distracted by the classic cities of Venice, Milan, Florence and Rome, or perhaps by the allure of the South; Travellers heading to […]
Neil Gaiman recently gave a talk to the Long Now foundation, talking about Stories and how they last. The Long Now foundation was set up to provide a counterpoint to today’s accelerating culture and help make long-term thinking more common. Its aim is to creatively foster responsibility in the framework of the next 10,000 years. […]
Neil Gaiman fans will be excited by the news that his hugely succesful and much-loved 2001 novel American Gods has been greenlighted for a TV adaptation by the American network Starz (makers of both Spartacus and Outlander). The show is being cast now (there’s already a twitter campaign by fans #castingshadow ), and will be […]
Elena Ferrante’s novel The Story of the Lost Child, the fourth and final novel in her Neopolitan series, has made the final five shortlist for Italy’s Premio Strega prize – and not without controversy. Ferrante was first nominated for Italy’s biggest prize 23 years ago, with her first novel L’amore molesto (Troubling Love). It didn’t […]
Bologna’s Museum for the Memory Of Ustica sounds like a mouthful, but in actual fact it’s a stunning museum, tucked away in a park in the city’s Bolognina zone (a 10-15 minute walk from the main train station). Ustica is an island off the coast of Sicily – near where, on the 27th of June […]
Arkells, for many people – particularly outside Canada, may be a new band, but they come fully formed off the back of three surprisingly well-crafted albums, Jackson Square, Michigan Left, and their latest High Noon. Their first album Jackson Square, in 2010 won them a presigious Juno award for best new band, and in 2012 […]
Lake Street Dive, the four piece band formed ten years ago whilst students in the New England Conservatory of Music, take their name from a street of dive bars in Minneapolis. A strange combination – classically trained music and dive bars – but combinations are at the heart of this exceptionally talented band, whose third […]
How do you begin to describe the soul and funk legend that was / is James Brown? Well, if you’re Rolling Stone you choose one of America’s best contemporary novelists, Jonathan Lethem, and send him to spend time around Brown (who dubbed him ‘Mr Rolling Stone’ – going so far as to sing, off the […]
Young Fathers, who won the 2014 Mercury Music Prize, were formed in 2008 in Edinburgh. Alloysious Massaquoi, Kayus Bankole and ‘G’ Hastings met at the Yard MCs’ under-18 hip hop night Lickshot at the old Bongo Club in Edinburgh, and formed a band with one eye on hip-hop, and the other on pop. They originally […]
