TMO Articles by Andrew Lawless

• A set of moving paintings – Making The Bridge of San Luis Rey. An interview with Director Mary McGuckian.

  Bridge of San Luis Rey Over ten years ago Irish film director Mary McGuckian first became interested in adapting Thornton Wilder's novel The Bridge of San Luis Rey for the screen. “It's strange. I'm more comfortable in a literary Cinema environment, but they're not very easy films to get off the ground. It was originally […]

• Crisis in Caracas – but for whom? Hugo Chavez and the recall referendum in Venezuela.

  [Editor’s note: Hugo Chavez won the recall referendum of August 15th.This interview was conducted prior to the referendum on the Chavez Presidency. For further info The Guardian] In 1998 Hugo Chavez was elected with an overwhelming majority as the President of Venezuela. This election marked the demise of a cosy oligarchy that had ruled in […]

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  Extending the shoreline – an interview with Chet Raymo

  When you think of mountains, and their connection with religion, where do you go in your mind’s eye? Mt Sinai with Moses sweeping down its slopes, burdened with divine legislation? Mt. Olympus with Zeus and a pantheon of Gods gazing with a playful eye on mortal affairs? It’s probably safe to say that few are […]

• Status Anxiety – an interview with Alain de Botton

  Alain de Botton in interview with Three Monkeys Online. “the abundance of information will be such that either you have reached such a level of maturity that you are able to be your own filter, or you will desperately need a filter, some professional filter. So once again you will ask somebody…an information consultant…to be […]

• Getting away with Murder. Corporate Responsibility in the Congo.

  For much of its independence the Democratic Republic of the Congo has experienced political violence, ethnic strife and civil war. Plagued by the twin misfortunes of extensive natural resources and the cold war, the Congo has often been the playground for outside influences, be they the concerns of the superpowers, or local regional powers. In […]

• Out of the Ashes – The search for Jewish identity in the Twenty-First century

  In a telling episode at the start of his latest book Out of the ashes, Professor Marc H. Ellis tells of an encounter, in New Zealand during a speaking tour, when his arguments were dismissed by an Israeli member of the panel with the simple but caustic phrase “he doesn’t even speak our language”. And […]

• Cooking with Fernet Branca – James Hamilton-Paterson in interview

  “The thing about cats” says James Hamilton Paterson, “ is that I've eaten a fair few of them. Having lived in the Philippines it's almost inevitable: they eat a lot of cats and dogs out there, and it's just sort of normal. Cat eating goes on all over the world”. Delivered in a voice that […]

• Whisky con Ron – Salsa Celtica

  Latin America and Scotland, Salsa and traditional Scottish folk music – you couldn't imagine two more different places or styles of music, or so you would think. Salsa Celtica, a Scottish/Cuban salsa band formed in 1996 in Edinburgh are a potent example of musical fusion, breaking down imagined barriers, and highlighting the links between diverse […]

• Islam on-line. Adapting to the digital age.

  The title is perhaps misleading, as obviously it's virtually (no pun intended) impossible to describe Islam on-line. Yet that is in a sense what Dr. Gary R.Bunt's research is attempting to do – to chronicle, record and describe the diverse manifestations of an Islamic presence online, that veers from religious scholars, to gay rights groups, […]

• Nothing New – Globalization, Economics, and the 19th Century

  Just as the 60's generation erroneously thought they had discovered sex, the 90's generation could be forgiven for thinking that it discovered globalisation. The media have embraced the word, and it's vaguest of vague concepts, to the point that it's become a shorthand for almost anything and everything to do with international trade. At the […]

• A Venetian Affair – Andrea di Robilant in interview.

  Andrea di Robilant is a soft spoken Italian journalist, with just the slightest hint of an American accent coming through, (he has American family roots on his mother's side, and for a number of years was the La Stampa correspondent in America). He is more likely to be found writing about International Politics than 18th […]

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  Bloomin’ Marvellous! Joyce and Trieste.

  As the world and his wife, in Joycean terms, turn their attention to Dublin, to celebrate the 100th anniversary of the fictional event of Bloomsday, it seems almost as if a lone Irish voice is reminding us that Joyce wrote most of his work outside of Ireland, and in particular a large part of it […]

• Dark Days Indeed – Firewater in interview

  Tod A., bassist and singer/songwriter of Firewater is hearing voices – his own – as a transatlantic echo bounces back his comments over the phone line. “Oh man, that's great, I get to hear how stupid I sound”. It's typical of the conversation that we have over the next half an hour, that veers between […]

• It’s only a game? Football violence, from the sociologist’s perspective.

  “We have to ask why we're surprised when there's violence associated with football? It's been an arena for largely ritualised patterns of expressions of aggression since time immemorial and you can go back even further: to classical history, to accounts of the circus factions of the fans of chariot racing in Rome and later on […]

• When is Genocide not Genocide? Recognising the Armenian Genocide, eighty-nine years on.

  When planning the Holocaust, Hitler famously referred to the Armenians, as an example of how quickly the world forgets terrible events. The Armenian Genocide however has not been forgotten and eighty-nine years after the event, remains a contentious and controversial topic. Turkey, Israel and the United States are amongst the countries that do not recognise […]