Alastair McKay's Blog, page 2

THE SPITZFINDIKEIT OF HOWARD JACOBSON: AN AUTHOR IN A MELANCHOLY RAGE

 The early reviews of Howard Jacobson’s Kalooki Nights have focused on the anger. There is a lot of it. There is anger about the Holocaust, about casual anti-Semitism, and the refusal of English Jews to make a fuss. But actually, anger doesn’t quite do justice to the complex of feelings conjured by Jacobson’s prose, because the fury is wrapped in black comedy. And while it is intensely specific

My Dreams, They Fade And Die (Confessions Of An Accidental West Ham fan)

ForeverOriginally uploaded by Herschell HersheyI lost my innocence at an evening game between West Ham and Crewe Alexandria. Oddly, for such a prime fixture, my good friend Denis had a spare ticket. But there was an ominous gleam in his eye when he handed me the Season Card in a corner of the Green Street Café. Sipping a milky tea, he fixed my gaze and said: “Welcome to a lifetime of pain.” At

The Waterproof Sexuality of Kylie Minogue: A bonus chapter not included in my book Alternatives To Valium

The Edinburgh Playhouse holds a number of significant memories. As well as a giant concert venue, it used to be a cinema. I saw the Sex Pistols’ film, The Great Rock and Roll Swindle, there. I saw the Russian Elvis. Tom Waits, his armchair, his standard lamp and his under-stocked fridge. The Blind Boys of Alabama, doing a gospel opera. The Velvet Underground betraying their instincts. Barry

Simply The Red: a bonus chapter from my book Alternatives To Valium: How Punk Rock Saved A Shy Boy's Life

I am sent to review Simply Red at the Aberdeen Exhibition Centre. This is not glamorous work. The Aberdeen Exhibition Centre is nobody’s idea of a good time. It is a shed, and Simply Red are very popular. Normal people like them. It is a disgrace. I have to stay overnight. I check into a sad hotel by the railway station. I leave my flowery toilet bag and a bar of chocolate in the room. It is my

Alternatives To Valium, the book. What it's like and where to find it. Plus, get a bonus fanzine and badge.

My book, Alternatives To Valium: How Punk Rock Saved A Shy Boy's Life is out now, published by Polygon. Click on the links to buy directly from the publisher, or order it online or from your local bookshop. The Scotsman review said: "The early years are a blast, from McKay's views on his first teacher ('Does she even like children? If she does, it's a secret') to his memories of his first fanzine

James Grant of Love and Money: "We don't look like extras from Ben Hur and I'm comfortable with that."

Love and Money's classic 1991 album Dogs In The Traffic was recently reissued on the Last Night From Glasgow label. This prompted me to look out an interview I did with singer James Grant at the time, a version of which was published in Vox magazine. I've included material that didn't fit in the original story. For more stories like this - such as my encounters with Nirvana, Dolly Parton, The

Cinematographer Christopher Doyle interviews cinematographer Christopher Doyle

When the cinematographer Christopher Doyle appeared at the Edinburgh film festival in 2008, he interviewed himself, because, he said, he would ask more difficult questions. Here are some of his answers. On film school. “Film school is only good for your sex life.”On his remake of Psycho with Gus Van Zant “A $24m art project” and “a celebration of shower curtains”.On himself.”The Keith Richards of

Alan Parker, from Nice One Cyril to Midnight Express. "I started making commercials. That was my film school."

November 2003: Recently, Alan Parker was asked to name his five favourite films. He thought about this, felt the reflex twitch towards Citizen Kane, then realised he didn’t have an open mind when he first met Charles Foster Kane in Orson Welles’s masterpiece. Before encountering the wonders of Xanadu, he had read about Kane and understood it to be the best film ever made.So he thought again and

A Southern Belle Dreaming of Fidel: the Freewheelin' Jessica Lange

Two days after opening night, and Jessica Lange’s Midwestern drawl has turned into a weary croak. She is, she confesses, “a little worn out. My voice has taken quite a hit. It’s that thing after the opening, your whole body wants to relax, finally.”The play is Tennessee Williams’ The Glass Menagerie. Lange appeared on Broadway in a production that was mauled by American critics. London has been

Succession's Brian Cox on playing Logan Roy: "Hitler was a human being, Mussolini was a human being. Donald Trump, apparently, is a human being."

In a long and varied career, Brian Cox has specialised in flawed, powerful men. He’s been King Lear, Hermann Goring, Hannibal Lecter. He’s currently playing Lyndon Johnson on Broadway. As Logan Roy, the patriarch of Jesse Armstrong’s brilliant satire of the uber-rich, Succession, Cox has arrived at the perfect role. Roy is a media mogul, in the vein of Rupert Murdoch or Sumner Redstone (patriarch