BBC Radio got it wrong about Prince Philip. First there was the overwhelming coverage: switching between Radios 3 and 4, it seemed that nothing else â Covid? Syria? â had happened. Then, there was the mangling of schedules. Two days after his death, I tuned in to Radio 3 to hear the always independent-minded Paul Morley talking about anti-establishment art. Instead, I got Daniel Barenboim playing Mozart. Nothing against the latter: on the contrary. But the unexplained assumptions behind the change are intriguing. Was Morley thought too provoking because the duke was not famous as a fan of the avant garde? Was an evening of classical music considered inherently respectful? Posher? More soothing?
Not long ago, in my capacity as a literary editor, I was exchanging emails with the eminent Dylanologist Clinton Heylin. Heylin wanted to review a new biography of Bob Dylan and I was sceptical. Could there be anything more to say about Dylan? Haven’t those ashes, by now, been thoroughly raked? “There have been so many,” I complained.
“You obviously know something I don’t,” Heylin replied with a steely good grace – because, needless to say, I knew, and he knew I knew, and I knew he knew I knew, the chances of me knowing something he didn’t on the subject were as slim as the chances of His Bobness covering the Spice Girls as the closing number for one of his shows.
And the brand played on: Bob Dylan at 80 theguardian.com - get the latest breaking news, showbiz & celebrity photos, sport news & rumours, viral videos and top stories from theguardian.com Daily Mail and Mail on Sunday newspapers.
Paul Morley’s A Sound Mind is an intimidating history of classical music This is a collage of Morley’s life as a long-time music journalist, slightly shorter-time classical music advocate, and conspicuously mortal human being. Paul Morley’s
A Sound Mind may seem like a book about music, but really it’s about death. This is both in the sense that Morley is preoccupied with it throughout and that he writes as much about the mysterious, metaphysical nature of music as what it sounds like. In music there is an overwhelming sense of the present moment and the certainty that it, like everything else, will end.
Meghan Markle s brashness vindicates TV s Piers Morgan – Yorkshire Post Letters yorkshirepost.co.uk - get the latest breaking news, showbiz & celebrity photos, sport news & rumours, viral videos and top stories from yorkshirepost.co.uk Daily Mail and Mail on Sunday newspapers.