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| Recent Publications by New English Review Authors |
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The West Speaks
interviews by Jerry Gordon |
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Mohammed and Charlemagne Revisited: The History of a Controversy
Emmet Scott |
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Why the West is Best: A Muslim Apostate's Defense of Liberal Democracy
Ibn Warraq |
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Anything Goes
by Theodore Dalrymple |
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Karimi Hotel
De Nidra Poller |
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The Left is Seldom Right
by Norman Berdichevsky |
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Allah is Dead: Why Islam is Not a Religion
by Rebecca Bynum |
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Virgins? What Virgins?: And Other Essays
by Ibn Warraq |
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An Introduction to Danish Culture
by Norman Berdichevsky |
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The New Vichy Syndrome:
by Theodore Dalrymple |
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Jihad and Genocide
by Richard L. Rubenstein |
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Second Opinion
by Theodore Dalrymple |
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Not With a Bang But a Whimper: The Politics and Culture of Decline
by Theodore Dalrymple |
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In Praise of Prejudice: The Necessity of Preconceived Ideas
by Theodore Dalrymple |
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Defending The West:
by Ibn Warraq |
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Nations, Language and Citizenship:
by Norman Berdichevsky |
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Romancing Opiates
by Theodore Dalrymple |
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Which Koran?
by Ibn Warraq |
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Our Culture, What's Left of It
by Theodore Dalrymple |
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What The Koran Really Says
by Ibn Warraq |
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Life at the Bottom
by Theodore Dalrymple |
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The Origins of the Koran
by Ibn Warraq |
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Why I Am Not Muslim
by Ibn Warraq |
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Spanish Vignettes: An Offbeat Look Into Spain's Culture, Society & History
by Norman Berdichevsky |
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Leaving Islam
Edited by Ibn Warraq |
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The Danish-German Border Dispute, 1815-2001: Aspects of Cultural and Demographic Politics
by Norman Berdichevsky |
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What's Love Got to Do with It?: Emotions and Relationships in Pop Songs
by Thomas J. Scheff |
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Here are the Blogs in the Mary Jackson category.
Monday, 24 April 2006
Waiting in vain
I caught the first part of “Start the Week” on Radio 4 this morning. The guests were Sir Peter Hall (founder of the Royal Shakespeare Company), Simon Callow (actor), Neil Biswas (screenwriter) and Ruth Scurr (biographer), and the subject was “Waiting for Godot”.
A “gang ...Read More...
Posted on 04/24/2006 5:13 AM by Mary Jackson
Sunday, 23 April 2006
You vill haf fun
We are told over and over again that Islam is a religion of peace. Nobody feels the need to say this about Buddhism. Why would that be?
Similarly, we do not hear people protesting that the English can indeed laugh at themselves, or that the French can cook after all. We take it as read. ...Read More...
Posted on 04/23/2006 5:51 AM by Mary Jackson
Saturday, 22 April 2006
We are all Elizabethans now
Much as I like to mock our Royal Family, I am a staunch monarchist and would defend this irrational and old-fashioned institution against any criticism from outsiders. Here she is again, looking pretty in pink:
Here are some reactions from The Times:
Ye Harte and Garter ...Read More...
Posted on 04/22/2006 6:05 AM by Mary Jackson
Friday, 21 April 2006
Happy Birthday, Ma'am
The Queen, Gawd bless ‘er, celebrates her 80th birthday:
She’s in good nick, isn’t she? Of course she can afford the best doctors and the best moisturisers. Forget free radicals – her radicals cost a Royal Mint. But for somebody who, as a late relative once ...Read More...
Posted on 04/21/2006 10:02 AM by Mary Jackson
Thursday, 20 April 2006
Wakey wakey!
Rise and shine. Breakfast is ready:
Looks lovely, doesn't it? However, the great British breakfast is under threat from Continental-style snacks of croissants and lattes. From The Telegraph:
A survey found that almost one in three people was aware of a café closing down in their neighbourhood, ...Read More...
Posted on 04/20/2006 4:58 AM by Mary Jackson
Thursday, 20 April 2006
Beckett - the lost plays (1)
Adapted from this entry on an obscure website:
Samuel Beckett, the lost plays: "Waiting for Vladimir and Estragon" (1954)
A country road. A tree. Evening. Godot, sitting on a low mound, smokes a cigarette and checks his watch.
GODOT: "...Bloody tramps..."
GODOT: ...
GODOT: ...Read More...
Posted on 04/20/2006 4:24 AM by Mary Jackson
Tuesday, 18 April 2006
What is happiness?
This question and many others will be answered here at The Iconoclast.
What is happiness? A cigar called Hamlet?
To be honest, I don't know what happiness is. But that's because I never had happiness lessons at school. From The Telegraph:
Pupils at an independent college are to be taught ...Read More...
Posted on 04/18/2006 5:38 AM by Mary Jackson
Saturday, 15 April 2006
Did Jesus really rise from the dead?
According to Gerard Baker, one "famously erudite example of graffiti" was spotted on the wall of an Oxford lavatory a while back. “Archduke Ferdinand found alive,” it said. “Wars of twentieth century all a big mistake”.
An “example of graffiti”? ...Read More...
Posted on 04/15/2006 6:46 AM by Mary Jackson
Friday, 14 April 2006
Beckett, schmeckett
Take a look at this:
Yes, it’s Prince Charles, in a dustbin (trash can to Americans), in a student performance of Samuel Beckett’s “Endgame” (with thanks to Esmerelda). For decades students sat around in dustbins or piles of sand and other students ...Read More...
Posted on 04/14/2006 6:09 AM by Mary Jackson
Wednesday, 12 April 2006
Eggstraordinary
All Easter eggs are a rip off. Usually they are more or less hollow with about three chocolate buttons in them. But look at this, in today's Times:
An Easter egg studded with 100 diamonds and costing £50,000 goes on sale in London tomorrow. The egg, more than two feet high, was sculpted by ...Read More...
Posted on 04/12/2006 4:11 AM by Mary Jackson
Monday, 10 April 2006
Something and nothing
Somebody kindly sent me this via email:
The inrcbedilbe pweor of the hmuan mnid
Aoccdrnig to a rscheearch porgamrme at Cmabrigde Uinervtisy, it deosn't mttaer in waht oredr ltteers in a wrod rae, eth olny iprmoatnt tihng is taht the frist adn lsat ...Read More...
Posted on 04/10/2006 7:42 AM by Mary Jackson
Monday, 10 April 2006
Red Ken does it again
Just when you thought the loathsome Ken Livingstone couldn't sink any lower - what? You never thought that - here he is comparing the poll tax riots of the 1980s to the massacre in Tiananmen Square. From The Telegraph:
Looking out over the Beijing square from the steps of the National Museum ...Read More...
Posted on 04/10/2006 4:34 AM by Mary Jackson
Saturday, 8 April 2006
A little learning is a dangerous thing
...if you've never heard of Pope, argues Charles Moore in today's Telegraph. Today's schoolchildren are tested far more than we were, but for what?
Exams today - with their modules, their coursework, and their questions requiring only bite-sized answers - have come to resemble a pervasive aspect ...Read More...
Posted on 04/08/2006 5:51 AM by Mary Jackson
Friday, 7 April 2006
The human brain
Never let it be said that the Iconoclast blog is shallow. We tackle the big subjects here. Yesterday I discussed beauty. Today I will turn my attention to brains, or more precisely the brain.
The human brain, it is said, is the most complex structure in the known universe. Well it would be, wouldn't ...Read More...
Posted on 04/07/2006 5:00 AM by Mary Jackson
Thursday, 6 April 2006
Skin deep
Alarming news in today's Times:
The average British woman spends £182,528 on beauty products and treatments in her lifetime, which works out at £167 a month or £2,004 a year, a new survey suggests.
£167 a month? On what? Gold leaf face packs? I don't know any "beauty ...Read More...
Posted on 04/06/2006 5:25 AM by Mary Jackson
Wednesday, 5 April 2006
Ancient and Modern
Although my grammar school – bring them back, now! - was very traditional in many ways, new-fangled ideas were creeping in. For example, we were not taught English grammar; we had to work it out from our Latin lessons. Perhaps worse than this, we were never compelled to learn poetry by heart. ...Read More...
Posted on 04/05/2006 12:50 PM by Mary Jackson
Monday, 3 April 2006
Polypragmonic
Hands up if you know what this means. You don’t?
I found out only recently, and feel rather self-conscious about using it. I tried it on a traffic warden but got a dusty answer. He said I was being unduly sesquipedalian. Not in so many syllables, of course.
Here, thanks to Hugh ...Read More...
Posted on 04/03/2006 6:10 AM by Mary Jackson
Saturday, 1 April 2006
Mass demonstration
Over a million Muslims are to take to the streets of London today in a demonstration against Islam. They are to march from the notorious Finsbury Park mosque in North London to the not-quite-so notorious Brixton mosque carrying placards bearing the following slogans:
They're only cartoons.
Israel ...Read More...
Posted on 04/01/2006 4:05 AM by Mary Jackson
Thursday, 30 March 2006
Google-thwart
There are many English names containing the word “bottom”. There is Pratts Bottom in Kent, Tikli Bottom in India and Ramsbottom in Lancashire. This last is a very pretty town, which has kept its name despite efforts by some of the locals to change it to a more decorous Ramsdale. Ramsbottom ...Read More...
Posted on 03/30/2006 11:29 AM by Mary Jackson
Thursday, 30 March 2006
"Striking idiocy" of revolting youth
Theodore Dalrymple in today's Times makes some wise observations about the French protests, linking them to over-dependence on the State, and warns the British not to get too complacent.
THE SIGHT OF MILLIONS of Frenchmen, predominantly young, demonstrating in deep sympathy and ...Read More...
Posted on 03/30/2006 5:43 AM by Mary Jackson
Wednesday, 29 March 2006
Shaming the capital
Further to Esmerelda's post on the loathsome Ken Livingstone, The Telegraph's leader says it all:
Ken Livingstone has brought further shame upon his country by calling the United States ambassador to Britain a "chiselling little crook". This is the latest in a series of xenophobic outbursts ...Read More...
Posted on 03/29/2006 4:55 AM by Mary Jackson
Tuesday, 28 March 2006
Entente cordiale?
Yesterday's Times carried a news item on a "new European league of IQ scores". Here it is:
It is disappointing that we are not "top nation", but on the other hand we would not wish to be "too clever by half", that very English insult. So does the article express pleasure ...Read More...
Posted on 03/28/2006 3:44 AM by Mary Jackson
Sunday, 26 March 2006
Get to the point
The Spectator's book reviews are very entertaining this week. Byron Rodgers takes a hatchet to Marion Elizabeth Rodgers' biography, Mencken: The American Iconoclast with such evident glee as to make one suspect sibling rivalry, although as far as I know, writer and reviewer are not related.
I confess ...Read More...
Posted on 03/26/2006 8:22 AM by Mary Jackson
Saturday, 25 March 2006
Damning with faint praise
Damning with faint praise is a big subject. Or not a small one, at any rate. I will tackle it a greater length on another occasion, when time permits. Today, however, I would like to share this example from a book review by Jonathan Sumption in The Spectator (subscription required).
The book in question ...Read More...
Posted on 03/25/2006 11:20 AM by Mary Jackson
Thursday, 23 March 2006
Slantendicular
In an earlier post I refer to the claim that using an unfamiliar word can increase your brain power. If this is true, my IQ has suddenly shot through the roof. In an article in today's Times there are a number of words which must be unfamiliar to most of us outside Norfolk. (That is Norfolk, England, ...Read More...
Posted on 03/23/2006 5:49 AM by Mary Jackson
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