Cover Page, 14 November 2019, Issue 223 Welcome to this week’s issue of Shaw Sheet. We hope you enjoy our comments, features, reviews, crossword and cartoons. If you’ve missed any previous editions, they’re all available via the Back Issues option on the main menu above. Please do register for the weekly email if you haven’t
14 November 2019 Lens on the Week UK SECURITY: A report by the Intelligence and Security Committee into Russian attempts to influence the last election and the EU referendum will not be published until after the General Election has taken place. The report is understood to have been given security clearance but was not released
14 November 2019 Winner Takes All Drama in Whanganui By John Watson This winter I will be visiting Whanganui in New Zealand. It is a bustling market town in sheep country and I expect my visit to be enlivened by some really top class drama. Russell Beale for example. He is very, very, good and
15 November 2019 Good Sports Heads Down, Chaps by J.R.Thomas BASC, the “British Association for Shooting and Conservation” is one of two lobbying and representative groups for those countrypersons who like their dinner to be of the flying type and to harvest it themselves; (the other is GWCT, the “Game and Wildlife Conservation Trust”). Their
14 November 2019 Why Canvass? UK General Election 2019. By Richard Pooley Last week John Watson extolled the virtues of canvassing during an election campaign: strangers talking to each other and hearing often totally different political opinions from their own, delivered without evident rancour. Okay, he didn’t say those last four words. But he did
14 November 2019 Paradise Lost Utopia to dystopia. By Neil Tidmarsh “Did you know that the first Matrix was designed to be a perfect human world, where none suffered, where everyone would be happy? It was a disaster.” –Agent Smith, ‘The Matrix’. I remember wandering through a ‘Mediterranean landscape’ at Kew Gardens twenty years ago.
14 November 2019 (Not) the £1.2trn News What is the problem with borrowing to invest? by Frank O’Nomics The first casualty of (electoral) war is truth. Just as outlandish statements in the referendum, regarding additional cash for the NHS of £350mn per week to be generated by Brexit, were impossible to justify, the £1.2trn increase
14 November 2019 ‘Crisis? What Crisis?’ Winter of Discontent II (2023) By Lynda Goetz The Wrights perched on stools around their kitchen island. John Wright’s heavily lined face looked weary as he peered at the Ludo board in the dim light of the two candles. He was reminded of his childhood, which was not something
14 November 2019 Tutankhamun The Saatchi Gallery reviewed by Adam McCormack King Tut is back and this could be his farewell (and best) gig ever. The recently opened exhibition of the treasures of Tutankhamun at the Saatchi Gallery displays the largest collection of artifacts ever exhibited in one place outside Egypt, many of which have
14 October 2019 Gauguin Portraits The National Gallery (7 October 2019 – 26 January 2020) Reviewed by William Morton Paul Gauguin (1848-1903) got around a bit and was up himself in a big way. However, the same is true of a lot of great artists. Surprisingly, given his raffish behaviour towards the end of his
