Tuesday 31st August Posted
by The Watchman at 16:15 --- Thursday 26th August Posted
by The Watchman at 11:02 --- Tuesday 15th June A
true thriller. An educative thriller written by Catherine Olsen in a
style that encourages one to keep reading without a break until the end. Posted
by The Watchman at 13:22 --- Thursday 3rd July Posted
by The Watchman at 15:26 --- Wednesday 2nd June Posted
by The Watchman at 12:16 --- Tuesday 1st June He is among several
journalists and writers to have been captured, including the Wallander creator Henning Mankell. The Reporters Without Borders website has more on this. Posted
by The Watchman at 11:31 --- Tuesday 25th May Posted
by The Watchman at 10:36 --- Monday 24th May Posted
by The Watchman at 14:31 --- Friday 14th May Posted
by The Watchman at 10:30 --- Thursday 13th May Posted
by The Watchman at 9:30 --- Tuesday 4th May During the Nazi dictatorship, voices that did not reflect the ruling doctrine were silenced immediately. Today Germany is a democracy, but once the topic of Hitler is broached, the ghosts of the past instantly resurface. There is a tacit understanding among the guardians of German public opinion that any characterisation of Hitler that deviates from the officially sanctioned comic-book monster ‘truth’ is strictly forbidden. Young Hitler violates this unwritten law in many ways. The book introduces a broader readership to a young Adolf Hitler who is not reduced to the carpet-biting simpleton to whom we have all become so accustomed.The young man portrayed in Young Hitler has many negative qualities but he is also a clever and cultured individual, driven by a demonic belief in himself and his mission. This Hitler is a truly dangerous man: an individual with the ability to inspire millions of Germans and conquer half of the European continent. The claims that Young Hitler makes are based on sound academic research, which renders it hard to challenge its authenticity. Der Spiegel did so anyway. Aware that attacking the book bluntly would only serve to arouse interest, the magazine did not voice outrage, nor did it complain about the positive character traits attributed to the young man. Quite the opposite: Der Spiegel suggests that Young Hitler only repeats well known Hitler clichés and is therefore of no interest to the intelligent German reader. In this way, any discussion is stifled before it can begin. One question of course remains: if Young Hitler is indeed as trivial as Der Spiegel suggests,
why did Germany’s most influential magazine devote half a page of its
latest edition to a book that is not even published in Germany? Posted
by The Watchman at 12:30 Tuesday 27th April The J R Ackerley award-winning author Jonathan Gathorne-Hardy had this to say about Emma Tennant's Waiting for Princess Margaret: '...involving, perceptive, evocative - and at the end somehow melancholy, elegiac...' Posted
by The Watchman at 13:30 Monday 12th April The historian Anthony Read, author of various books dealing with the Third Reich, had this to
say about Claus Hant’s Young
Hitler, due out this month. Posted
by The Watchman at 11:30 --- Tuesday 6th April Kit Fraser’s political career is gathering momentum. Here’s the official 'The Joy of Talk Party' literature.
Posted
by The Watchman at 11:30 --- Thursday 18th March William Dalrymple has this
to say of Kit Fraser’s The
Joy of Talk, due out in May. Posted
by The Watchman at 11:30 --- Tuesday 9th March For our Chairman’s thoughts on the loss of an old friend, click here. And for the Guardian’s obituary, click here. Posted
by The Watchman at 11:00 --- Friday 26th February
Posted
by The Watchman at 11:00 --- Monday 22nd February Taken from Tofu Landing, the new and soon-to-be-bestselling novel by Evan Maloney, this is Bernini's Apollo and Daphne.
--- Monday 8th February In keeping with our feature on the art featuring in Tofu Landing, a new novel by Evan Maloney, this is Rothko’s Elemental Horizons. And to read the Bookmunch review of the book, click here.
Posted by The Watchman at 15:41 --- Thursday 21st January
Posted by The Watchman at 16:21 --- Tuesday 19th January Getting Warmer... Our Chairman's blog has received a fait bit of attention since launching late last year. Most recently a call for free speech (and, dare we say, sanity) in the debate on climate change - for context click here, here and here - has fallen on deaf ears. After receiving threats of a boycott for daring to publish Ian Plimer's hugely controversial Heaven and Earth - George Monbiot's favourite 'alternative' view on climate change - he then faced accusations of making the whole thing up. So, not only did Quartet have the temerity to publish a 'deceitful' book by a leading academic on the subject of climate change, we also fabricated the adverse reaction to the questioning of its central premise. And all of this to sell books... Ironically, however, the facts suggest otherwise. Posted by The Watchman at 13:29 --- Tuesday 12th January Emma Tennant The recent revelation that Lord Glenconner, brother of Quartet author Emma Tennant, has a long lost lovechild with a model, echoes the thoughts of writer and critic Frances Wilson on Tennant's own Waiting For Princess Margaret. 'The Tennant family seat of Glen, a nineteenth-century faux-castle in Scotland, provides the bizarre setting for this rich, witty and utterly unique memoir. With tensions, tangles, spats, scandals, revelations and revenge packed into every page, Emma Tennant discloses the dramas of her splendidly dysfunctional clan with her trademark irony and charm. Pure pleasure from start to finish, Waiting for Princess Margaret is the literary equivalent of a Christmas episode of EastEnders.' Posted by The Watchman at 17:13 --- Wednesday 6th January Tofu Landing Read an exclusive extract of Tofu Landing by Evan Maloney, due out in February 2010. The
true power of Tristan’s being qua being was derived from the media
persona he had created for himself (and that had been created for him).
He had the raw potency of celebrity and being near him was a bit like
being on drugs. OK, yes, Declan was on drugs, but the very air around
them seemed rife with fame and scandal and for the first time in a long
time Declan felt excited about being alive.
'What class of
twat am I?' he wondered. Declan
had never met anyone as famous as Tristan before and was surprised to
feel his heart pounding in his chest. Did this mean he was blushing? If
he wasn’t already blushing the idea that he might be blushing had
probably made him blush and he stood in front of Tristan feeling like a
young groupie. Be natural, he told himself, but as soon as “be natural”
becomes a conscious imperative in your mind you can never be natural,
you can only ever, at the most, act natural. Perhaps the most
successful people in the world were those who could maintain an act of
naturalness in a world composed of pretence. Declan’s nerves directed
one hand towards his neck to scratch at a non-existent itch, half way
to this goal he realised that any scratching would betray his nerves.
He brought his hand down to his side again but there was nothing for it
to do except dangle so he tried to put it in his pocket until he
realised that he had no pockets in the trousers he was wearing. With no
more options he gave up and started scratching at an imagined itch on
his hip. There he was, standing before a man that he had judged a
pathetic fool and pitied (yes pitied), wondering what to do with his
hands. ‘How’s
it going?’ Declan said. ‘What
happened to your hand?’ Tristan asked. Declan
put his golden hand behind his back and mumbled a non-answer and
changed the subject, saying that he liked the poster of Tristan on the
wall. Tristan began to sing lightly, with half-closed eyes. ‘I’m a
pin-up boy looking for a pin / cold metal dreaming, against my skin /
I’m running from fame / Cos I don’t really care / what
people-I-don’t-know think of my hair. ‘Do
you like that song?’ he asked when he had finished. ‘I
don’t know it.’ ‘You
have to know a song to like it?’ ‘You
have to hear it.’ ‘You
just heard it.’ ‘Is it
yours?’ Declan asked, trying to move the conversation away from his
taste in music. ‘You’re
not a Rod’s fan then?’ Tristan tried to sound curious but not
disappointed. ‘My
interest in music never really recovered from the death of vinyl
records. I could never quite forgive an industry that tried to make me
buy the same records twice.’ Tristan
laughed. ‘So, you’re a Romantic.’ ‘I’m
worse: I’m sentimental. I collect all my train tickets in shoe-boxes
and take them out on rainy days and cry over all those lost journeys.’ ‘Really?’
‘No.’ Tristan
mumbled something to himself and took another hit from the foil of
heroin and offered it to Declan. ‘I’m
good,’ Declan said, just like a character in a movie. Tristan looked at
him, puzzled. ‘You
really don’t know that song?’ Declan
shook his head. ‘Sorry.’ ‘This
is fabulous,’ Tristan smiled vaguely. ‘I love it. I really love it. Why
don’t I meet more people like you? People who don’t kiss my arse just
because I’ve been called the greatest poet since Byron.’ ‘Someone
called you the greatest poet since Byron?’ ‘Critic,
NME, you know, they call it the bible of cool, I call it the bible of
school.’ Tristan
simulated masturbation to indicate what he thought of school. He took a
hit of heroin and lit a cigarette and pointed to the foil.
‘Unfortunately the media chooses to focus on this and on my sexual…
voracity, rather than my music. They’re crass and vulgar. They have no
style. They call me an addict.’ ‘You
are smoking heroin in the morning.’ ‘Addiction,’
Tristan said, drawing philosophically on the cigarette before exhaling,
‘is just a metaphor.’ Declan
nodded his head and waited for Tristan to break into song again but he
didn’t, instead his head lolled about like some knob attached to a
well-oiled ball-bearing. He closed his eyes and slowly began to lean
forward, tipping further and further over until the momentum returned
him to his senses and he straightened up and continued speaking in the
same soft voice. ‘What we’re talking about here is a habit. We are all
creatures of habit, after all: some of us go to the gym, some of us eat
chocolate, some drink alcohol, some read books, some watch birds, and
some take socially taboo substances. What are your habits?’ Declan
had to think of an answer. ‘I’m in the habit of f***ing my life up.’ ‘Is
that my phone?’ Tristan asked suddenly. The only sounds Declan heard
were the faint chirping of birds and the hum of motors on the main
street below. ‘I
don’t hear anything.’ ‘Who?’
Tristan asked, and Declan looked around to see if he was the only
person in the room talking to Tristan. Tristan
continued his dialogue with the phantom in his mind and his voice
descended down a dark cave: ‘Oh, Vivian, yeah right.’ Declan had to
lean forward to catch the next speech, muttered with reverential piety:
‘The ineluctable… modality… of the… visible. She’s very beautiful. So
very young, so pure and… no productiveness of the highest kind, no
remarkable discovery, no great thought which bears fruit and has
results is in the power of anyone ... Man must consider them as
unexpected gifts from above, as pure children of God.’ Declan
had no idea what Tristan was talking about but it sounded impressive,
if not original. Tristan laughed lightly and lit another cigarette
while the first smoked in the ashtray on the table. ‘Purity is the
fruit of all knowledge,’ he said, coughing and hacking up some phlegm
and spitting it into an empty beer bottle. ‘Vivian says you review
art?’ ‘In a
blue moon.’ Tristan
pointed up to the Rothko print behind him. ‘Review that.’ ‘It’s
three bands of colour washed onto the canvas.’ ‘But
what does it mean?’ ‘How
do you feel looking at it? That’s all it means.’ ‘I
feel calm, but confused.’ ‘There
you go.’ Declan lit a cigarette and savoured the feel of the smoke
passing like silk down his throat. ‘Maybe that’s the smack… I always
thought Rothko’s paintings were about horizons.’ ‘Horizons?’
‘Elemental
horizons.’ Declan moved over to the print and pointed to the top edge
of each of the three colour fields in turn: ‘Is this the
horizon? Or is this the horizon? Or this? It all depends on your point
of view, doesn’t it? It could be dark land at the bottom, blue sky in
the middle, dark cloud up the top; or land, water, sky; or land, water,
mountains; or land, desert, water. You see, the horizon can’t be
placed. And what are horizons anyway? They look like the end of
something but they don’t exist in any absolute sense, do they? They’re
not the end of anything, they’re just the limits of your vision at a
particular time, you’d have to be like a-a-a fully-grown tree never
moving from the one spot for your horizon to stay the same all the
time.’ Tristan
took a hit of heroin and grimaced for a moment then relaxed and
regarded the Rothko with a new curiosity. ‘Non-endings,’ he said
quietly. ‘Horizons, eh?’ Posted by The
Watchman at 17:13 Tuesday 1st December Andrew Trimbee It’s the first day of December and, as our gift to you, faithful reader, we bring you Andrew Trimbee’s new website. For more from the author of The Inshallah Paper, click here. Posted by The
Watchman at 20:45 Wednesday 25th November Naim Attallah Barely a month into his blogging adventure, Quartet Chairman Naim Attallah has already caused a stir. His blog, which you can follow here, features in today’s ‘Londoner’s Diary’ in the Evening Standard. To read the piece online, click here. If he keeps this up, The Watchman will soon be out of a job… Posted by The
Watchman at 21:47 --- Monday 23rd November Sweet
Seduction and the Third Mermaid Catherine Olsen’s Sweet Seduction and the Third Mermaid features in the Christmas issue of The Seychelles Review. Granted, not all of us
will be lucky enough to be out in the Posted by The
Watchman at 20:28 Monday 16th November Pregnant
Women Five charity billboards featuring naked pregnant women six metres high will be launched this Wednesday by Television presenter Kate Garraway, childbirth charity The Jentle Childbirth Foundation, and renowned society photographer Joth Shakerley. The aim of the campaign is to provoke debate on the perception of the pregnant form and the lack of drug-free birthing options available to young mothers today. There are five posters, each measuring 4mX6m of pregnant women nude with the following slogans: Pregnant
Women: Beautiful? Pregnant
Women: Be Proud? Pregnant Women: A celebration? The posters are not explicit but certainly will stop traffic. They are designed to spark serious and much needed debate about the perceptions society holds about pregnancy and birth. Stigma surrounding breastfeeding in public still exists and many women do not feel they have a choice of where and how they give birth. Pregnancy is often made to feel like a process rather than the celebration of new motherhood. All posters are images taken from Joth Shakerley’s forthcoming book Pregnant Women. ‘These posters are beautiful
portraits of the most natural and essential experience that life can
offer. Pregnancy in modern society can often feel like being in a
process rather than the nurturing of new life and love. Pregnancy and
childbirth should be the most positive and personal experience, which
the Jentle Childbirth Foundation supports through education, training
and research.’ Jenny Smith, Midwife, mother of four and founder of The Jentle Childbirth Foundation ‘In my mother’s generation,
pregnancy in this country was definitely a taboo subject. I speak from
some personal experience, as my mother, the actress, Virginia Maskell,
sadly took her own life, after suffering from post natal depression, a
condition that was not treated seriously in 1968. Yet, still today,
when I introduced the concept of naked pregnant mothers in a
photography book some people expressed outrage and even shock.
This made me very sad indeed. Pregnancy is the single thing that allows
humanity to continue and to not be able to celebrate it in its
most natural form seems to me quite wrong. With this campaign I hope to
get people thinking and talking about this all important subject.’ Joth Shakerley, Photographer ‘This idea that the pregnant
body is anything but the most natural beautiful thing to be celebrated
and applauded is crazy. With my second daughter people frowned upon me
breast-feeding in public, as though motherhood was something to be
ashamed of. Without motherhood we have nothing. I wanted to embrace
& celebrate, what motherhood meant to me; what it means to all
of us.’ Vanessa Clarke, one of the five pregnant mothers featured in the campaign For more, click here. And for Quartet Chairman Naim
Attallah’s thoughts, click here. Posted by The
Watchman at 20:41 Wednesday 11th November Quartet Chairman Naim
Attallah has blogged about And to buy the book for just £10, click here. Posted by The
Watchman at 20:41 Tuesday 3rd November Sir Hardy Amies To celebrate the paperback publication of The Englishman’s Suit, Quartet Chairman Naim Attallah recalls his friendship with the great couturier – both on his newly launched personal blog, and here on Watchword. The following interview, a fascinating and at times prescient conversation between Sir Hardy and Naim – who was described by the celebrated writer A. N. Wilson as ‘the best interviewer alive’ – is taken from Of A Certain Age (Quartet Books, 1992). In
your autobiography you record that there was no marked display of
affection in your childhood. Was that something you were aware of at
the time or did it occur to you only on mature reflection? I was never aware of it. I have the feeling of having had loving parents who were not demonstrative; I have no feeling of ever having been deprived of affection. Were
they ambitious for you? Yes, my mother particularly so – and fortunately she lived just long enough to see the glimmering of the first successes. Yet
in your book you make a point of avoiding discussing the relationship
with your mother. Why is that? I don’t know. I actually got on better with her than I did with my father, though he was a most affectionate man, and we didn’t get on badly by any means, but in the long run he wasn’t very bright, and she was brighter. My mother had what is laughingly called taste – of course it was restricted to suburban taste, her life being very circumscribed. She was a village girl, but because of the years that she’d spent in a court dressmaker’s she could recognise a real lady, and how she behaved, and she respected that. Your
brother who was Down’s Syndrome ‘coloured your childhood’ as you put
it. Did you resent the amount of attention and care he required? Not in any way whatsoever. It’s only looking back that I realise that it must have been a tremendous strain on my mother and on the resources of my father. But I wasn’t conscious of that at the time, and I never had any feelings of disappointment. We loved him – Down’s Syndrome children are always lovable – and later I inherited responsibility for him when my parents died, but by that time he had been in a home for several years. You
left the family circle at the first opportunity, and though you insist
there was nothing ‘unpleasant’ about your upbringing, one has the
impression that yours was not a very happy childhood… It was certainly pursued by a lack of money, but although that imposed huge restrictions, we were not on the poverty line. Overall, I think we were happy. Your
mother’s death seems to have been a terrible blow. What are your
memories of that time? She had been ill with cancer for so long that there was an element of relief; it was only afterwards I was moved. Your
father remarried within a short time, and both you and your sister seem
to have disapproved of his second wife. Why was that? Although she was a good-hearted woman she was socially very inferior to our standards, which is an awfully snobbish thing to say, but it’s true. As in most families the daughter is closer to the father, and so my sister minded more than I did. She was at first jealous of this really hideous woman. She was so ugly apart from anything else. Then
why did he marry her? I wouldn’t care to go into the details. I now realise that my father was a very sexy man, and obviously she had certain tricks which satisfied him. You
are very close to your sister Rosemary…is she the most important person
in your life? Yes. I’m six years older than she is, rather bossy, and frankly, much cleverer than she is, something she has always admitted herself. There are strains which are difficult to articulate. I am very conscious of my responsibility towards her, but one of the difficulties is that she is, I think, sexless, in the sense of not really being interested in sex, although she has had sentimental attachments to women. Consequently, she’s never really understood my life which perplexes her still. It’s difficult for her to accept that I have male friends, though there are some who have always been in my life and with them she has made friends, I’m happy to say. She
hates it when people call you effeminate. Yes. I am able to laugh at it, because I’m not really effeminate at all. In fact I would loathe to be a woman. Another difficulty is that she accuses me of not liking women; and that is true to an extent. I like them as artistic figures, as a sculptor likes his clay, but on the whole I despise their minds. So
you feel much more comfortable in the presence of men. Yes. It’s not that I don’t want women in my life – I’m very happy to have them around. But we’re in danger of getting on to sex, which I said we weren’t going to talk about. In
the early 1930s when you were in The disillusionment came gradually. The family with whom I stayed welcomed Hitler as a saviour of the middle classes and the aristocracy, and I simply went along with them and didn’t question their judgement. A much greater influence in my life at that time was the manager of the local factory, a north German, an extremely orderly man who, I now realise, was very attracted to me. He was an intelligent, politically clear-thinking man, who favoured the Nazis to begin with, but changed in the course of events, and by the time I left he was very disillusioned. Have
you ever taken a serious interest in politics since then? Have you ever
joined a political party? No. I’m only interested from the outside. Our local MP is Douglas Hurd, and I go to his meetings out of politeness to him. Also, before the last election I couldn’t bear the thought of the socialists winning, so I wanted to give him all the help I could. I
doubt whether it’s generally known that you were part of special forces
during the last war. That would seem improbable to those with
stereotypical ideas of a dress designer. Did you enjoy that period of
your life? Not really. I considered
myself lucky to have spent the major part of the war in a branch of the
War Office in Did
you always want to be a dressmaker? No, I never thought about
it. It always seemed something so remote from our lives, in spite of my
mother. And in those days there were no designers in I
imagine that a lot of people not in the business regard dress design as
a frivolous affair. Does that bother you? No. I am not aware that people do regard it in that way. On the contrary, they are always amazed to hear about how much I earn for the country. At the time I joined the profession it was becoming socially acceptable, so I profited from that development. How
on earth did you manage to set up any sort of business, let alone a
fashion house, at a time of such terrible austerity? The war was a long time
starting and it was a long time finishing. Churchill wanted
unconditional surrender, which horrified me in view of my German
connections. But during the time it dragged on I had the chance to lay
down plans. I felt no guilt, since I didn’t take any hours off, just my
full allowance of free time. Then my darling stepmother gave me a
thousand pounds, which was quite a lot of money in those days. I had
ten thousand pounds when I started, and we made ten thousand pounds
profit during the first year. There was actually no feeling of
austerity; everybody wanted new clothes. The Americans were the ones
who really encouraged us, because they were on my doorstep before we
even had the clothes – in fact they bought them from the paper
patterns. I opened on 1 February 1946, and by April I was in In
an interview with Richard Rosenfeld you used terms like ‘smarty pants’
with some affection and talked about the ‘gentry’. Did you feel very
conscious of social divisions when you began? You appeared to adore the
smart set. Yes, I knew that I had to
get on. Looking back, I learned the language of the English upper class
just as I’d learned German and French. The You
describe yourself as a self-confessed snob. Have you no qualms about
that at all? No. I am a staunch
supporter of the class system. I uphold it out of conviction; it’s the
best of Don’t
you have a commercial incentive to say that? Of course, the commercial
side suits me very well, but there are two more important reasons.
Firstly I have a happier life for being a snob because I have a wide
circle of friends, and the top people are far more interesting than the
bottom people. Secondly, I’m very keen on English history and have an
above average knowledge of it, certainly above average for a
dressmaker. I have also lived in So
you’re a great supporter of the monarchy? I would die for it. I really would take out a gun and go and shoot people if they ever threatened it. It’s one of our most precious assets. To destroy it would be the most wicked thing. I say this not just because I admire the present Queen. I would still support the monarchy even if we had a bad queen, heaven forfend that we did. It’s the idea I defend; primogeniture is order – it’s God. You
design dresses for the Queen. How important is that for you? I’m really a supplier, a fournisseur, a furnisher of clothing to her. She accepts my advice if it suits her to do so. Her guiding principle in ordering clothes is that they shall be appropriate to the occasion for which she wants them. Not that she has explained all that to me – it’s something I sense. She has supremely good manners. You
clearly have great admiration for her. Enormous, and for many reasons – her politeness, the order of her mind, the way the palace is run, the way she has never failed to keep an appointment. I
suppose there is a sense in which the fashion business depends on a
certain sort of snobbery, on the urge to be differently and better
dressed than others. I don’t think that’s an urge of any consequence. Our customers simply want to be comfortable and correctly dressed for the occasion. There is sometimes a competitive element, most evident when mothers are choosing a wedding dress for their daughter, and want it to be better than the one they saw on their friend’s daughter. But the competitiveness is not so strong in their ordinary buying; in many cases they don’t want to stand out, they just want to be comfortably accepted. You
have promoted an ‘English style’. What do you think are its
characteristics? The main characteristics of the English style is that it has to have something to do with the country. A well-dressed, well-bred English woman is at her best when she looks as though she has either just come up from the country or is just going back there. Urban clothes are better made by the French. Another feature is a certain nonchalance – a word invented in my studio. We abhor the dressed-up look, and we’re not good at what is called dead chic – mort chic – that’s not our line of country. There always has to be a curious timelessness about English clothes, because it’s not good style to wear a new dress. My favourite duchess gave a very important private ball for which she wore a twenty-five-year-old dress. She had a new dress made by me for the servants’ ball which took place the day before so the servants could not say that her grace was wearing an old dress. But for her own proper ball she wore on old dress and she looked marvellous. That is English style at its best. Do
you think of your designs as artworks? After all, they are clearly
works of imagination… Absolutely not. I look on them as the work of an artisan. I don’t like going to museums where they have collections of garments which have usually been designed for one particular occasion, then put away. My clothes are worn out and do not appear in museums. I
suppose dress designing is so personal a service that you become
closely acquainted with some of your customers, a bit like a portrait
painter… That’s not quite true. I have seen very few of my customers over forty years. Don’t forget the structure of the house which dictates that clients are seen by a vendeuse who does more than just sell; she serves the customer and waits on her and guides her through all the fittings, and very often becomes her friend. I like to retire and leave it to her. It is also a question of using up time and energy; I love to see my customers, but if my business were based on their always having to see me, I’d have been dead years ago. I don’t even see the Queen any more. I
have always wondered quite how it is that fashions change in the way
they do. It never seems to be the case that things are suddenly and
radically different. Do you think there is some sort of evolutionary
law which governs it? Fashion changes much less
than you think. The idea of it changing is one promoted by newspapers
which find it a very good way of filling a page. The women I know, not
only my own customers but in my life generally, change the length of
their skirts by perhaps one inch per season. Good expensive clothes for
ladies don’t actually date. I recently went to a very high-class
wedding in And
they looked smart? They looked correct. There is a difference. It’s a difference the Queen understands; she knows being too smart implies something hard. The Duchess of Windsor on the other hand dressed too smartly. You
said once that you can always tell when a lady’s got style – ‘You have
only to see her in her underclothes to appreciate that.’ Perhaps you’ve
been luckier than I have, but how else can you tell…I mean, what
constitutes style? I think the word is insouciance. You must never show that you are impressed by your own clothes, or have that ‘Don’t I look wonderful?’ expression. You must never be conquered by your clothes; style is to be master of your clothes. When you see women in their underwear they must be immaculate. I take a rather old-fashioned view since most ladies of great style nowadays wear Marks and Spencer underwear, but I prefer the undergarment to be of beautiful quality, superbly hand-made, and extremely plain. Frilly underclothes constitute extremely bad style. There
are now design schools and indeed art schools with sections devoted to
clothes design. Do you think it is actually possible for the industry
to sustain the current numbers of designers? No. A very wise question. Firstly I deplore the fact that there are design departments in art schools; it gives them quite the wrong idea, because clothes design is not art, it’s craftsmanship. They even give degrees now which is totally idiotic. In my view a dress is not a dress until it has been sold; before that it’s just a sketch, a suggestion. There must be the desire for a woman to possess it, to pay money for it, and that philosophy is sadly lacking in art schools. Secondly there has definitely been a decline in the teaching of craft. There should be more prizes for craftsmanship rather than design. What we lack are trained craftsmen and craftswomen, not designers. There are too many designers. Fashion
will I suppose become more and more international, especially with the
advent of the Common Market at the end of this year. Will there be room
for distinctive national differences? Indeed, is it possible now to see
that a particular dress is French or Italian? If it looks vulgar it has a good chance of being Italian as distinct from French. But that is an unattractive remark. You
have been outspoken, if not scathing, about women in design. Why is it
that there are so few well-known women designers? One would have
thought that they were the obvious source of ideas and yet many of the
more famous designers seem to be men. Men are objective, women are not – about clothes, or indeed anything else. The one outstanding exception was Chanel, and it is extraordinary how her influence is still felt today. But she had a man’s mind and was very disciplined in her designs. Also a designer of high-class expensive clothes cannot exist alone; he has to have a team with him, and this is what is forgotten by most people, and certainly not appreciated by the press. I am here today at the age of eighty-three because I have support, and in three years’ time my house will have been fifty years in existence. I am the boss, and men make better bosses than women do. Because we’re more intelligent. Twenty
years ago you were saying that the couture business was really
finished; it was too labour intensive to make any money. But it still
seems to be going. How long do you think such businesses might continue? Well, we lose money at the moment, but if we are clever enough to earn in other fields, in licensing fees, in design labels, and in using our studio intelligently, then I think we will win through. Have
you ever designed clothes to be provocative? Not consciously. They are sometimes seductive, but not provocative. If a dress is too sexy it’s a bad dress, I’ve always said. At
one point you sold a considerable share in your business to Debenham’s
only to buy it back again later on. Why did you feel it was necessary
to do that? Did they try to control your creative output? No, they didn’t do that.
The disadvantage was essentially in having new bosses, in fact in
having bosses at all, since I’d always been totally independent. When
they bought us they promised to do two things: one was to help launch a
women’s ready-to-wear business which would have had the marvellous
platform of Debenham’s sixty shops; secondly they were going to launch
a proper scent business – but they did neither. And in addition we had
the aggravation of being bossed by them. There was blatant jealousy
towards me, and it was also quite clear to them that they couldn’t
control me. Though I had no shares in the business most of the
contracts were in my name – The
recession continues to bite despite all the government talk. I imagine
that the fashion business must feel the force of that very early… When there is a recession people buy wisely. If a woman is prepared to spend £2,500 on a suit, she knows she is buying the best possible value. So the recession hits shoddier merchandise more than ours. We suffer a little bit, but my retail figures for the last year are down only ten per cent, which is not too bad, and the overseas revenue is up. You
never married. Was that a conscious decision or was it just that the
right circumstances never occurred? It never occurred to me that I would marry. I did once get engaged to a girl, but I cannot think why; it certainly wasn’t because I wanted to go to bed with her. I thought perhaps she would make a good wife to me, but she was sensible enough to say no. I have been quite content and self-contained in the way I have lived, and I’ve never felt lonely for one minute. I have my sister, and I love having friends around. Ken Fleetwood who has been with me for forty-two years and is now the design director of my business comes to my country house fifty weekends out of fifty-two. We are not lovers, but he is like a son to me in the broadest sense. About
three years ago I interviewed Harold Acton who is a confirmed bachelor,
but when I asked him if he had ever desired a woman, he said that he
had, and indeed had a penchant for oriental women. Have you ever
desired a woman? No. I’m tremendously physical but I can’t say I have ever desired a woman. I love flesh, I’m very tactile, very ‘MTF’ – Must Touch Flesh. I actually love touching women for the pleasure of it, to hold their hands, to stroke their arms, and I love beautiful women. It gives me immense pleasure to dress a woman to perfection. You can’t do it to a man because he just looks a pratt, a bloody fool. So curiously enough whilst I am obviously attracted to men more than I am to women, I still think it is idiotic to dress a man. I’ve always said a man should order his clothes with intelligence, put them on with care and then forget all about them. You
have, I believe, made arrangements to leave your fashion house to your
employees. Certainly a very generous gesture, but I wonder if you have
ever regretted not having had children to come after you? It never crossed my mind. In fact I’m very grateful I haven’t got children. The children of men in the dress business all seem to be want to be lawyers or bankers, they never want to follow their fathers. When I see the troubles and responsibilities that children bring, I don’t regret not having had children for one moment. How
would you sum up your recipe for success? I’ve worked hard, not desperately hard, but I’ve always done my duty and I have a conscience about not doing the right thing. I have also had an amazing amount of luck. Perhaps the most significant factor was my three years on the road as a salesman selling weighting machines; it was not a very happy existence, but I did it and created an aura of orderliness and of dutifulness which somehow stood me in good stead. If I hadn’t done my duty with that rotten job I would never have got the good one. I
understand Molyneux was your god, why is that? Firstly because he was an
Englishman, secondly he had extremely good taste in clothes. He
believed in simplicity, as I do. All good clothes are totally unfussy.
The first dress I ever saw of his was the simplest possible garment
that just buttoned up the front, but it was absolutely impeccably made
in beige linen with black buttons. And I learned that lesson and I
follow it to this day. Although I can’t draw, I have a gift of being
able to see a garment from a piece of cloth. There are glob designers,
little boys who can draw, make a little sketch, but they never
seriously think of it, as I do. When I’m working on an article I think
about it all the time, and then it takes me ten minutes to write it,
because it’s already written in my head. Although I don’t want to
compare myself with a genius, this is exactly what Mozart did. On the
way to How
important is a beautiful face for the success of a dress? A beautiful face helps tremendously, but the real challenge for the designer is to give a woman grace; it’s what I call honouring cloth – you mustn’t foul it up. No seam is ever attractive, so you must have a minimum of seams, then you have to achieve a certain skill of disguise. A woman of a certain age does not have an attractive bosom, and anyway to show the bosom too markedly is common; to disguise is very important. Then you indicate the waist by the position of the buttons, rather than by nipping it in – the cloth must not be fucked up. At
the age of eighty-three you seem very fit. What is your secret? Homoeopathy is very important in my life. I’m not fanatical about it but I will use a homoeopathic remedy if I possibly can. I haven’t taken aspirin for fifty years. And tennis is a very good cosmetic. I play an hour’s tennis on Saturday and Sunday, and for the rest of the week people tell me how well I look. I
read somewhere that you’re not in the least afraid of death. No. You’re just going into nothing, so why should you be frightened of nothing? I don’t believe in an afterlife. I believe in the existence of God, but it could have any other name – nature, for example, or order. I think there’s something that was put into our minds, and the question is, why the fuck are we here? I don’t know the answer, but there is something we want to order, but the order is gone when you’re dead, totally gone. And I don’t mind it. I was meant to have a life, not a death. A
lot of people who are not religious in their youth, tend to become more
religious with advancing years. I don’t have that feeling at all. My sister, being six years younger, thinks I’m going to die before her, and she would like to have a funeral for me. I quite agree, because I don’t know of any other way of doing it. These non-denominational affairs are too awful for words. I’d rather have the whole thing, incense and choir, the lot. But this is nothing to do with fear, nothing to do with getting on the right side of God, not remotely. And
nothing to do with conviction? No. It’s toujours la politesse. It’s good manners. You
were knighted in 1989. After the long association with the royal family
did you not think this was a somewhat belated honour? No. It never crossed my
mind. I still think it’s the biggest stroke of luck. Queen You’ve
had two books published now. Has that been a rewarding experience? Publishers have one
serious fault and that is that they never read anything. [Laughs.] You
just know they haven’t read the bloody book. George Weidenfeld is quite
an inspiring man to help you make a book, but I don’t think he’s
terribly interested. In any case I think my books are pretty dull in
the end because they’ve got so many tactful omissions. Men should never
have women editors because they don’t understand how men’s minds work.
Diana Mosley was so funny when she said apropos of publishers that they
all keep a troupe of Nigerians in their cupboard and when they edit a
book they bring one out of the cupboard and give her a stub pencil.
Women always bring in irrelevancies. They’re illogical creatures. Even
Mrs Thatcher is a typical example, quite illogical, doesn’t follow it
through. She also imitates an upper-class voice which is the biggest
grating thing that anybody can do. The voice is the key to the class
system in You’re
a very emotional man. Have you ever fallen madly in love? Oh yes…every week, mostly with the milkman. [Laughs.] How
would you like to be remembered? I would like people to say, oh we miss him, he was such fun. I like laughing with people more than anything in the world. Life is a joke, a big joke. Posted by The
Watchman at 22:07 --- Monday 2nd November The
Monica Porter’s The Paper Bridge is causing quite a stir, nearly thirty years after its first publication. After a terrific review in the Daily Mail last month, author Monica Porter features in the latest issue of Saga magazine. For more, go to saga.co.uk – and to buy the book, click here. Posted by The
Watchman at 19:43 --- Saturday 24th October The Chairman’s Blog In anticipation of the launch of Quartet Chairman Naim Attallah’s personal blog, which is destined to stir up things in the book world, The Watchman has decided to make room here for his very first post. Independent book publishing just got interesting… What is
happening to our press in this country? I have always assumed that it
would not be easy for our national newspapers to be intimidated by an
author whose behaviour can be seen to be at best erratic, who defies
logic in what he says and whose rhetoric is transparently far worse
than his bite. In this I am referring to Denis Lehane, who had a
horrific and previously unknown story to tell and whose book, Unperson,
has been published by Quartet with a foreword by the distinguished war
correspondent Philip Knightley. In
early December 2008 I received a letter from Mr. Lehane along with a
huge manuscript. Its text was rambling and repetitive and the book was
not publishable in that original form, but its story was horrendous and
deserved publication. This could only come about, however, with
rigorous editing of elements that needed to be carefully balanced and
the modification of intemperate language likely to cause offence, which
could only detract from the seriousness of the narration as whole.
Viscount Monckton, whose name was cited on Lehane’s letter for
testimonial purposes, agreed to edit the book, on condition that he
secured from Lehane an agreement in writing giving him full authority
to edit the book in conjunction with myself as publisher. Mr.
Lehane was granted the usual rights to approve the edited text for
publication in line with accepted practices, but with any ultimate
decisions vested in both Monckton and myself. To all of this Lehane
readily agreed. At one point he raised the issue of using pseudonyms
for those he referred to, but it was a proposal I argued against, for
the book is a non-fiction account of what happened and I felt there
should be no cover for the people responsible for inflicting such an
ordeal on him. Lehane relented on this point too. Viscount
Monckton was the ideal editor. He knew the author well and had
in fact been instrumental in freeing him from his long and painful
incarceration. The editing went very smoothly and Monckton delivered a
completed manuscript by the beginning of January. Throughout the
editing period he had coordinated all his decisions with the author.
The libel lawyer then suggested various amendments and the author
agreed to them as well. The book was ready to go to press. At
this point, for no apparent reason, Lehane turned on Monckton, his
former benefactor, who had given him refuge in his own home for two
months after he was freed, claiming that the manuscript was no longer
the one he had written. Henceforth, he threatened, both Monckton and
myself were to communicate with him only through his lawyers. A saga
ensued, during which I held firmly to my resolve that, in my capacity
as publisher, Quartet would stick to the terms of the contract and
subsequent agreements, and publish the book as edited. Lehane, enraged,
promptly engaged in a battle of letters, writing to everyone he could
think of who might be in a position of influence, and putting every
newspaper in the land on notice that he would take whatever legal
action he deemed necessary if they so much as mentioned the book or
gave it any prominence in their pages. The
astonishing thing is that the ploy he conjured has so far worked. No
single newspaper has as yet reviewed this important book, with the
exception of The Times Literary Supplement. This brings me back to my
original query. How has the press in Britain become so craven and
fearful as to be cowed by an author who started off begging his
publisher to publish his story, insisting that he wanted no financial
gain for himself, but only to expose those in the security services who
had tortured him in both the UK and the USA for failing to be recruited
as a spy? We
used to have a press that was noted for its investigative
tradition. Now, seemingly, it has become too scared to tackle
a subject where human liberty is sacrificed to condone those elements
in government willing to abuse the power they hold from an invisible
position in an unaccountable cause. Where
Unperson is concerned, I challenge the author either to carry out his
threats or else belt up. Blowing off a lot of hot air is not a worthy
occupation for a journalist who has distinguished himself in that
profession in the past. He should be grateful that he managed to find a
publisher who had the courage to expose the story, even at the risk of
alienating the establishment and those involved in perpetrating the
inhumane actions he records as having been carried out against him. As for the press, if they obstinately maintain their silence despite having a good and true story at their fingertips, then it is up to the public to take issue with this silence and seek out the book for themselves, either in bookshops or through the Quartet website. Posted by The
Watchman at 11:47 --- Tuesday 20th October The
Old Ladies of Reviewed in the Times Literary Supplement as a ‘parable, told in the language reminiscent of the oral tradition’, The Old Ladies of Nazareth by Quartet’s Chairman, Naim Attallah, has just been re-issued in paperback. First published in 2004, this re-issue will allow many readers to discover a charming tale of love, reminiscent of the tales by Paul Gallico, which were so often bought as small holiday gifts or stocking-fillers. David Sexton in the Evening Standard called it ‘a brief, lyrical story’; Anne Chisholm in the Sunday Telegraph ‘a short, simple account with fairytale overtones’; and Caroline Moorehead in The Spectator ‘a short morality tale about two elderly sisters...modest, poor, sickly ladies of great kindness, never speaking ill of others and imparting a sense of virtue and goodness...’ Perfect for the holiday season! Posted by The
Watchman at 20:10 --- Friday 16th October Men Who Dream Can Do Launch Party At a very successful
reception held at the prestigious Millennium Hotel, in Over 120 books were sold and the author needed to sit for over two hours inscribing copies to his eager public. As far as Quartet is concerned, we hit the jackpot that night. Posted by The
Watchman at 11:10 --- Tuesday 13th October 2009 George Zakhem George Zakhem’s wonderful Men Who Dream Can Do continues to garner high praise from all quarters. Here are some recent highlights: ‘By dint of hard work, brains
and sheer guts, George Zakhem has built a highly impressive
international enterprise. This story of success by a poor boy from a
remote Lebanese village is truly inspirational.’ Patrick Seale ‘...While at times he can show
impatience, it is because his strict standards render him sometimes too
demanding. George’s story is a remarkable narrative of uninhibited
self-revelation, not shying away from admitted flaws but always within
the framework of pride in his successes and achievements. This memoir
brings together the intimacy of belonging, the dilemma for a Lebanese
who seeks to escalate
‘Your book is truly
inspirational for me and for the Lebanese youth of today.’ Rami Hraiki
‘George Zakhem is an engineer,
preoccupied with numbers, figures and precise data, yet he is also a
poet of the spirit who is able to invite us into his world and teach us
how to live life and grow as individuals... This is a book that will be
widely read, as long as men seek to reach the essence of being in the
thoughts of great men and the beauty of the world around them.’ From a review by Suheil
Bushrei, Professor Emeritus at ‘I’ve read your book and have
found it extremely interesting, especially in learning how you gained
your work experience and started your own company. It’s a great
testament to your dedication to succeed in business, sometimes against
all odds.’ John Garcha ‘I thoroughly enjoyed reading
your autobiography; it is an inspirational and educational read. It
was, certainly, very exciting to get an insight into your many
journeys. You have lived and lead an eventful life, fuelled by vision
and motivation...’ Lara Baloyan
‘When I saw the publication of Men Who Can Dream Can Do...I felt honoured, excited and
full of pride... You are indeed the inspiration for each and every
hard-working man as you have shown us the way of how it was and will be
done. Moreover and more importantly you have proved that all is
possible.’ Johnny Zakhem, Regional
Director Finance & Business Support, Planning &
Analysis, Greater ‘Congratulations for a most
brilliant book. The title is excellent and is laid attractively on the
cover. Your story and your memoirs are inspiring, deeply moving and
make for compelling reading. Men who dream can indeed do great things.’ Leila Tannous Posted by The
Watchman at 13:10 --- Tuesday 6th October 2009 Ian
Norrie Following
on from the Guardian’s obituary,
the Times also remembered legendary
bookman Ian Norrie. To
read the full piece, click here. Posted by The
Watchman at 15:21 Friday 25th September 2009 Ian Norrie Remembered The Guardian remembered legendary bookseller Ian Norrie earlier this week. Norrie, one of the industry’s last remaining bookmen, sadly passed away on 12th September. Quartet published Norrie’s fascinating memoirs, THE BUSINESS OF LUNCH: A Bookman’s Life and Travels, earlier this year. Click here for the full obituary. Posted by The
Watchman at 10:10 Tuesday 22nd September 2009 All Publicity Is Good Publicity… In its review of TOMAS today the Guardian seems to suggest, with a tongue wedged firmly in cheek, that James Palumbo’s debut novel is not quite the masterpiece it has been led to believe. It’s almost as if the paper feels cheated. TOMAS is a ‘clever joke’, it claims, an ‘audacious’ stunt and a conspiracy between the author James Palumbo and his showbiz pals. Furthermore, the book has been ‘forced’ on the Not The Booker Prize shortlist – a shortlist set up to explicitly counter the seemingly out-dated and out-of-touch Man Booker Prize – much to the chagrin of the unfortunate reviewer. But herein lay the problem with this caustic drivel. The Guardian’s Not The Booker Prize was supposed to offer up something different to the Booker, which often feels diametrically opposed to reading habits across the land. And yet, when a book comes along that has so clearly polarised opinion, excited, animated and frustrated reviewers from all parts of the blogosphere and garnered as many five-star Amazon reviews as it has four, three, two and, inevitably, one, the response is nothing more than snobbish buffoonery. When was the Guardian Books Blog transformed into the Coliseum for good literature to do battle against bad? When did the journos at the Guardian become the gatekeepers of literary progress? More to the point, when did anyone give a monkey’s what they think? We’ll let these questions be answered by others. Apart from the last one, the answer to which is, of course, self-evident. Posted by The
Watchman at 15:50 Monday 21st September 2009 Yet More Praise For George Zakhem ‘I read your book and learned a
great deal from it. I admire you and your achievements. I think all
young people should read it. You can be such a powerful role model for
all of them. I will certainly recommend it to a lot of
students and friends as well.’ Joseph G. Jabbra, Ph.D., Posted by The
Watchman at 13:40 Tuesday 15th September 2009 Watch Gavin James Bower Model-turned author Gavin
James Bower joined the inimitable Sebastian Horsley at Notting Hill’s Aubin
& Wills boutique the other week, reading from his
debut novel, Dazed & Aroused. Click here to watch the highlights from an unforgettable evening. Posted by The
Watchman at 16:40 Monday 14th September 2009 Ian Norrie We are sad to announce the death of legendary bookseller Ian Norrie. Quartet Books published Norrie’s fascinating memoirs, THE BUSINESS OF LUNCH: A Bookman’s Life and Travels, earlier this year. As both an author and one of the last of the real ‘bookmen’ in publishing, he will be sorely missed. Posted by The
Watchman at 14:40 Wednesday 9th September 2009 More Praise for Men Who Dream Can Do Here are some wonderful endorsements for George Zakhem’s Men Who Dream Can Do: ‘You have brought back to life a
lot of values which have almost become extinct nowadays. Each page had
its own unique flavour. I could smell the olive trees, I could breathe
the precious mountain air of Lebanon, I could feel the heavenly
parental love and sacrifice, the dedication, determination, will power,
struggle, hardship, resistance, and most of all pride, which carved a
very special person like you. Your transparency and openness made all
that tangible to an extent it brought tears to my eyes. But the highest
virtue of all is your endeavour to help in educating new generations,
in laying the bricks to brighter futures affecting many people,
especially the needy ones. Your honourable background coupled with your
experiences in life and all the above qualities have visualised your
dreams into reality, and, yes, Mr Zakhem, men who dream can indeed do.’ Omayma Murtada ‘I have read your life story
with great interest. Having known you very closely for many years, I
suddenly found myself enmeshed in the lucidity, simplicity,
truthfulness and spontaneity that characterized the book. Yours is a
story of success. As the title of the book rightly put it: “Men who
dream can do.”’
‘Besides the highly descriptive
sections from your youth and then AUB education, the story of the birth
and growth of Zakhem Engineering is truly inspiring. It should be on
the reading syllabus of leading business schools and a case study for
their students. Having worked in both Adib Salem ‘This is a personal story of
George Zakhem who from a small village in Dr Munir Ahmad, Research
Fellow, Posted by The
Watchman at 16:10 --- Wednesday 19th August 2009 Men
Who Dream Can Do An extract from a reader’s review, sent to the author in the form of a letter:
Dear
George, As a
narrator you have the gift to keep your reader engrossed in what you
are saying about places and people that we would have never known if
you did not decide to share your memories with us. There is a great
deal of passion in it, and that’s probably the force that drove you all
through your life; this is what makes even the simplest description of
professional details for some engineering works readable. Never a
boring page in your narration, on the contrary, it is informative
without pageantry. Grabriella
Bassatne 17th August 2009 Posted by The
Watchman at 16:56 --- Monday 17th August 2009 The Saga Continues… Keen readers of the Watchword blog (or, um, the Guardian) will know all about the on-going feud between Ian Plimer, author of the controversial polemic Heaven and Earth, and George Monbiot, the Guardian’s resident Environmentalist-in-Chief. (Scroll down for the background but, essentially, Monbiot got all hot and bothered when Plimer scored a publicity coup by ending up on the cover of The Spectator, Plimer then challenged him to a fight – not literally, of course – which Monbiot accepted, under certain conditions, not all of which were immediately clear, and then…well, you get the point.) It seems Monbiot didn’t see the funny side when Plimer responded to his challenge – to answer a series of specific written questions in addition to taking part in the face-to-face debate both men seemingly agreed to a few weeks ago – by asking his own set of (admittedly ridiculous) questions. The eco-scribe claimed not to be able to understand a word of it, presumably bringing a smile to Plimer’s rather tan Ozzie face. Read the full piece here. And, in a further twist,
the feud has spilled over into the other papers. James Delingpole, the
man behind the Plimer interview in The
Spectator, gleefully blogged in the Telegraph
that Something tells us this is going to run and run… Posted by The
Watchman at 17:26 --- Wednesday 12th August 2009 Men Who Dream Can Do George Zakhem, author of Men
Who Dream Can Do, has been praised by Paul Salem,
Director of the Dear
Mr. George Zakhem, I
thank you for writing down your life story for others to
read. You allowed us to be with you in your childhood They
say a book should be a work of art; I think your life is the work of
art: a work of deep values, strong will, large strides, vision and
ambition, mixed with humility, simplicity and gratitude. Through
the book I feel that I have met you for a second time. I have learned
about your identity and history; about your character and values; about
your goals and vision; and about how you get things done. And in
learning about you, I think I have also learned something about
myself. About our roots in the Koura, about the challenges of
life and work; about the importance of giving back and building
institutions; about the importance of integrity, perseverance and
loyalty. They
say actions speak louder than words; and I think your actions in the
worlds of business and education have already spoken volumes. But I
am grateful that you also put down in your own words the story of your
life and work. It is a lasting testament to you and to your wonderful
family and to the causes for which you have worked so hard. Congratulations. Sincerely, Paul Salem Posted by The
Watchman at 14:56 --- Tuesday 4th August 2009 The Heat Is On It seems the Guardian’s George Monbiot has taken to stirring up trouble for a living – which we’re rather excited about. Last month the author and
environmentalist attacked Ian Plimer’s Heaven and Earth
after it featured on the front cover of The Spectator. Plimer,
responding to Monbiot’s sour grapes over what amounted to a media coup
for the anti-climate change camp, then offered to come to the In today’s Guardian, however, Monbiot claims Professor Plimer messaged him, backing down from such a challenge – on the grounds that he doesn’t want to address his critics and their ‘specific’ issues in a written debate, to be carried out in addition to a face-to-face one. And yet, we at Quartet have it on good authority that the debate is very much still on, and he’s telling fibs. Over to you Mr. Monbiot… Posted by The
Watchman at 19:16 --- Monday 3rd August 2009 Who
Is The Sixth Man? The recent announcement from
the British Library that Anthony Blunt’s ‘memoir’ has been made
available coincided with an extraordinary review of our own book, The Sixth Man
by James McNeish. Posted by The
Watchman at 19:01 --- Friday 17th July 2009 Green
With Enmity It’s all kicking off in the climate change debate. After George Monbiot’s, shall we say, less than positive reaction to the latest issue of The Spectator, which featured Ian Plimer’s controversial Heaven and Earth (and argument that anthropogenic global warming is a lot of hot air, as it were), Professor Plimer challenged him to a public debate. We love a potential fist fight here at Quartet, albeit in this case a purely figurative one. (We think.) But feel free to make up your own minds. Read the original piece from The Spectator here, and Monbiot’s article here. For the letters page of The Spectator, click here. And to read Heaven and Earth for yourselves, click here. Posted by The
Watchman at 19:08 --- Monday 13th July 2009 Celebrity
Endorsements There’s a very amusing piece in today’s Independent about book shout lines – y’know, those punchy quotes from famous (or not so famous in some cases) people telling you why you should buy a copy. It seems that Tim Walker (the bloke behind the Independent piece, in case you’ve never heard of him either) has a problem with these – and he’s taken aim at James Palumbo, author of TOMAS, to show it. Far be it from us to point
out the glaringly obvious irony, but the posters on the tube and
‘planted’ reviews on Amazon seemed to have done the trick. The man has
traipsed back and forth across Even so, for anyone not sure whether or not to be swayed by celebrity endorsements, here’s what he has to say about the book (taken completely out of context, naturally): ‘If everyone else is after it, it must be worth a read, right?’ Maybe Palumbo can use that for the sequel… Posted by The
Watchman at 12:08 --- Monday 6th
July 2009 TOMAS
Acclaim "TOMAS
is the best work of fiction that I have read that crystallises the
hypocrisy behind the current financial turmoil. It is a book that is
reminiscent of the best satire that
Posted by The
Watchman at 12:08
---
Tuesday 30th
June 2009 A
message to those who believe in a balanced political view on the Middle
East Those of us who hope for a
realistic basis for peace in the Significantly, there has been a turn in the tide of opinion as more political commentators around the world have begun to urge their governments to recognise Hamas as an important political force if the peace process is to be propelled in a workable direction. And yet surprisingly, and
to the consternation of many, the British press, far more than its
counterpart in the This is particularly
pertinent to Quartet Books, as we very recently published Kill
Khalid, a remarkable book by a well-known and
highly respected Australian war correspondent Paul McGeough. The book
has received great reviews in the This could be interpreted as an unspoken tactic to limit its public circulation. Indeed, it seems rather
odd that both political spectra, right and left, have decided to deny
the book any coverage despite the fact that it is an objective account
of a real event - as well as of the bigger picture within the One way to neutralise this embargo of silence, however, is to read the book for yourselves and urge others to do the same. It is time to defy the establishment and let your voice be heard. Posted by The
Watchman at 18:32 --- Friday 26th
June 2009 Check out the brand new VOD content for James Palumbo’s debut novel TOMAS, due to be published by Quartet Books in July 2009. Just click here for SHIT TV programming that will shock, appall and we hope a whole lot more… Posted by The
Watchman at 18:32 --- Saturday 20th
June 2009 Global
Controversy Ian Plimer’s Heaven and Earth is causing quite a stir in the scientific community, with the Guardian blogging about its supposed promotion of “the same nonsense, the same logical fallacies, the same confusions” in the global warming debate. The full post can be found here. What we find troublesome here at Quartet, however, is the Guardian’s unwillingness to prove this. Not only is the book incredibly well-researched in itself, but we can provide plenty to back up Plimer’s arguments across the web. Try here, here and here for starters. But there’s little to support the Guardian’s claim, which is not accompanied by illustrative example or any kind of evidence whatsoever, that a book like Heaven and Earth adversely affects discourse. In fact, we at Quartet would argue the opposite is true. The Guardian’s dismissal of the book – and any contrary opinion in the climate change debate – can only mean one thing when it is not supported by proof: the debate cannot move forward. In the immortal words of eco-warrior and one-time pop sensation Alanis Morissette, isn’t it ironic…don’t you think? For more on Heaven and Earth, and to buy a copy, click here. Posted by The
Watchman at 10:45 --- Sunday 14th June 2009 Unperson Unperson: A Life Destroyed, by award-winning Irish journalist Denis Lehane, is a timely indictment of governmental malfeasance and police brutality. With the country’s police force currently making headlines for all the wrong reasons – the death of Ian Tomlinson being only the latest in a string of events that have provided fodder for commentators and even inspiration for artists – the book couldn’t be more relevant. In 1984, Lehane refused to work undercover for the CIA and MI5. As a result, he was falsely accused of being insane, an alcoholic and a serial rapist who had tried to murder his two girlfriends. He was duly put away in an asylum for life. But when a television reporter rang Lehane, in his captors’ hearing, to say that CNN were making a major documentary about him, he was hastily released, the programme cancelled and its maker sacked from the network. Denied
any trial, Denis Lehane will never recover; yet slowly, painfully and bravely, he has spent long years writing this book. If you thought things have changed in the 25 years since the beginning of Lehane’s truly awful ordeal, just look at any newspaper, switch on the television – and think again. Posted by The
Watchman at 20:46 --- Wednesday 10th
June 2009 Check out the brand spanking new website for James Palumbo’s debut novel TOMAS, due to be published by Quartet Books in July 2009. Just launched, the site includes endorsements and reviews from the likes of Niall Ferguson and Stephen Fry, as well as background on the author, founder of Ministry of Sound James Palumbo. Keep checking back for a gallery, special TOMAS blog and soon-to-be broadcast SHIT TV programming. Just click here for the website – and let us know what you think in the ‘comments’ below. Posted by The
Watchman at 16:32 --- Tuesday 2nd
June 2009 Columnist Melanie Phillips plugged Ian Plimer’s Heaven and Earth in The Spectator yesterday. Phillips calls the book ‘the definitive last word’ on the subject of climate change, but you can read the full article – and make up your own minds – here. And to get your hands on a copy of the controversial title, click here. Posted by The
Watchman at 11:45 --- Monday 1st
June 2009 Welcome to the Watchword blog, where we’ll be updating you on all things Quartet as well as drawing your attention to stuff we reckon … well … demands your attention … Watch this space! Posted by The
Watchman at 10:30 |
