May 2017 – Jack Sanger

Season of discounts and discontent

The time is back with us when people scratch their heads and wonder why the not very great and not very good are on the Queen’s Honours list. Given my republican tendencies (well, leanings that have tipped me over into a horizontal defiance) it always surprises me when people conflate the need for royalty with… Know More
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Faggots and Maggots

Long in the tooth as I am – the first record I owned was a 78, Rock Around the Clock by Bill Haley, the other side being Thirteen Women and Only One Man in Town – the various incidents of BBC intervention on the part of a minority (or majority) have always stood out as… Know More
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The browning of Britain

I read somewhere recently – I remember, it was in one of those answers-to-impossible-questions books that are piled up near the door in Waterstones; the sort that people buy for friends when they have run out of ideas – that the basic colour of the universe is brown. Examine all the colour spectra of everything… Know More
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The Assassination of Jesse James by Jack Sanger

Let me explain the background to this odd title. I saw a documentary on Jesse James recently and then went to see the film with Brad Pitt and Casey Affleck, (excellent!). Both were reasonably well researched and showed Jesse James to have been a psychotic killer. Rather like Billy the Kid, he became the subject… Know More
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What a load of Bali nonsense

Whatever weak resolution comes out of the talks about the global environment, the fact remains that the US has become the caricature of a self-aggrandising bully. Whilst its history of ‘exporting democracy’ at the end of a gun over the last decades, whether in South America, the far east or the middle east has had… Know More
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Dealing with your naked truth

If television is not pandering to the fantasies of people wanting a place in the sun or, at least, a new location, it is offering a new skin for them to live in. This is cheap-shot reality viewing and, in some ways, it is TV’s own version of Second Life, the Internet-based virtual community discussed… Know More
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The case of the Sudanese teddy bear

Alexander Pope satirised the enmity between families caused by a suitor’s removal of a lock of a woman’s hair without permission, in Rape of the Lock, by comparing it to the rape of Helen of Troy and the untold misbehaviour of the Gods. The ‘storm in a teacup’ that underpins such satire comes to mind… Know More
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Naked animosity

Here is one of the drawings referred to in the last blog. If you are interested in seeing more of the artist’s work, email me on my website and I will forward your email to her. Know More
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More sex problems

I met up briefly with an old friend the other day, in Gerona, northern Spain. She is an Austrian painter. Recently she attended a master class with an international array of well-known artists and part of the work they were set involved ten minute life studies, a traditional exercise in observation and line. The nudes… Know More
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Sex sex sex sex sex

Always an attention grabbing headline, don’t you think? Anyway, it is an appropriate handle for what follows. I went to the Barbican yesterday to see the Seduction exhibition. It is an arty form of what you might see in the various sex museums throughout Europe, such as the one in the Pigalle in Paris. Drawings,… Know More
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