Friday, April 13, 2007


THE NEW YORKER

Those of you who visit my blog regularly will know that I am a HUGE fan of The New Yorker, it is indeed my favourite magazine.

The last two issues, which arrived here within two days of each other, the vagaries of mail delivery, were both full of gems, e.g. the issue dated April 2 had a hugely, entertaining, eye-opening account of British chef Gordon Ramsay’s opening of his New York restaurant by Bill Buford. Now I do not watch a lot of TV, takes up too much reading time, but I do tend to be addicted to top quality British food programmes – Rick Stein, Jamie Oliver, Nigella Lawson and the aforementioned Ramsay being among the front people for some of my favourites. The difference I guess between these four celebrity chefs is that I like three of them and am appalled by the behaviourof the fourth. Yes, Ramsay!

This brilliantly observed 12 page story by Buford had me gasping. If you would like to read the story yourself then use this link to the New Yorker. You will be glad you did. Greatly entertaining.

Then the original fiction piece in ths issue proved to be by one of my most favourite contemporary Irish writers, Roddy Doyle. An arresting, rather sad piece called Teaching, about a teacher in a Catholic boy’s school.

Loads of other stuff too, including a review of Lionel Shriver’s The Post-Birthday World by Lionel Shriver, who is of course going to be a star guest at the Auckland Writers and Readers Festival next month.

Then to the issue of April 9. Also full of gems.

Loved the hilarious piece by Henry Alford where in quoting from The Times about the expected tourist invasion of York for the centenary of W.H.Auden’s birth where cab drivers are memorizing some of his poetry he comes up with this:

‘E was me Norf, me Souf. Me East and West
Me working week and me Sund’y rest,
Me noon, me midnight,me talk, me song,
I thought that love would last forever:
I was wrong.

And there is more from the clever Alford.




Then a big piece, 10 pages, on the Metropolitan Museum of Art and its treasured antiquities.


There is much more including fiction by Don DeLillio, all the usual sharp cartoons, and a piece by Adam Gopnik, (remember his marvellous "Paris to the Moon"), called Cooked Books which to summarise in a few words is about cooking sequences within novels.

The New Yorker, what a magazine. I love it! Thanks Mark for the subscription.

4 comments:

PJKM said...

But, you know, the Alford piece would have been a lot funnier if he'd written it in a Yorkshire accent. Why would he think cabbies in York speak like Londoners? It was a Dick Van Dyke moment, I thought.dun

PJKM said...

'Dun' means nothing at all, by the way - just lazy fingers, dragging over the keyboard!

Anonymous said...

I think that by and large all Yanks think all Brits speak with a Cockney accent. And likewise all Brits think that Yanks speak with a Brooklyn accent.

PJKM said...

You'd expect the New Yorker to have more of a clue.