The biography of a great poet, author and lyricist (musician, actor, raconteur) demands rare skill to meld these disparate elements into a satisfactory whole. If there are occasional cracks… Read More
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Personal blog, from Dylan to Dali, from psychology to politics.
Smuggling Duchamp out of Spain was never going to be easy under the stony gaze of the Guardia Civil and one can only assume that the 20th century’s most enigmatic artist w… Read More
The invisible Buddha can only be seen through the third eye of the imagination. The Buddha is in us and around us. The eyes of the Buddha see the past, the present, the future   Read More
1989. Cracks appear in the Berlin Wall. The Soviet Union hoists the white flag. The oil tanker Exxon Valdez runs aground in Prince William Sound, spilling crude across pristine Alaska. Thous… Read More
When I was teaching English in Barcelona in 1984, people lowered their voice if the subject of General Franco came up. He had died almost a decade before in 1975, but it seemed as if he was… Read More
What is a gentlemen’s agreement? It’s a look, an imperceptible nod of the head, rippled brows – an understanding that needs no signature nor handshake between parties who d… Read More
The new biography of Leonard Cohen – ‘The Man Who Saw the Angels Fall’ – is the definitive memoir of one of the most important poets, songwriters and thinkers of our… Read More
Americans grow up under the cloud of the American Dream, a way of life and a set of beliefs that lead to disappointment and dissatisfaction.
It is commonly thought in the United States that… Read More
The National Gallery in London had no idea when they titled their summer show ‘The Last Caravaggio’ that another painting by the Renaissance renegade had mysteriously appeared… Read More
We would all like to go back and change the past with its medley of false memories and disconnection. But the past is not as fixed as we imagine. The future is in flux and the present is the… Read More
Dalí and Duchamp in Cadaqués played chess at Bar Melitón in the barren years after World War Two and collaborated on a secret project that only came to light after Ducha… Read More
Making short films has never been easier. Cameras are smaller, lighter, less expensive and easier to use. A home PC and an inexpensive programme is all you need to edit, compose music and ad… Read More
A couple argue. He or she looks back as he or she leaves the room and says something sparkling with a four letter dash of venom. That is the last sting of the dead jellyfish. Two men fight… Read More
Bob Dylan and the Judas call are legend. What’s less well known is that this seminal moment in rock history had roots going back to the Peterloo Massacre in 1819.
Dylan on stage with T… Read More
Everyone is waiting for something. Waiting for the kettle to boil, the rain to stop, the sun to come out.
We are still waiting for something.
Everyone is waiting to clear their closets, thei… Read More
Shrine to Saint Pius V
On a day with fast winds and the sun low in the sky, 450 warships clashed in bloody combat in the Battle of Lepanto. It was 7 October 1571, the last major sea bat… Read More
The tobacco smugglers of Cadaqués saved the village from poverty and abandonment after the wine louse phylloxera wiped out the vineyards.
Penelope Cruz
In the right circumstances, tob… Read More
Lord Harmsworth with Adolf Hitler
There are many reasons why people hate the Daily Mail – reflecting the fact that the Daily Mail is itself filled with hate.
The Mail hates every… Read More
We take flowers to the hospital when we visit the sick and dying without reflecting on the irony that cut flowers are already dead and their scent is to shield us from the smell of dead drea… Read More
When Bob Dylan in 1967 recorded I Shall Be Released in the basement of the Big Pink, a house rented by Rick Danko close to Woodstock, the title was elegiac and had a double meaning, naturall… Read More
Cadaqués Marxism began long before Karl Marx was born and lasted until the middle of the 19th century when Marx and Engels in 1848 published the Communist Manifesto.
The first settler… Read More
What is the difference between erotic and pornographic?
Anaïs Nin
It is probably not a question I would ever have asked myself until I got a call from a photographer who ran a website … Read More
How do you measure the distance between right and wrong? Does it vary like the moon’s distance from earth? Or is it exact like Einstein’s E = mc2?
Can you be a little bit wrong?… Read More
Umberto Eco (1932-2016) – the Italian philosopher and novelist, author of The Name of the Rose and Foucault’s Pendulum – had a personal library of 50,000 books. He tho… Read More
We would all like to know how to be happier and the answer may be a lot more simple than we thought.
Flor, Marsha, Iris, Pilin and Lali – happy to be together.
I typed ‘how to be… Read More
In my research into the name Thurlow, it occurred to me that your name becomes who you are and has a far stronger influence on our lives than we imagine.
One summer in Cadaqués.
An… Read More
Lady Godiva and Peeping Tom had an assumed or telepathic pact. When she rode naked through Coventry in the 11th century, had the hot bloodied young Tom not taken a peep, her theatrics may ha… Read More
Killing a swan was once considered an act of treason and still today you can end up with a large fine, even a prison sentence. I didn’t know that when I was 14 and didn’t know th… Read More
With time running out for Rishi Sunak before the next general election, the Tories are frantically flipping through the playbook on how to steal an election.
Happy Days
Sunak’s first d… Read More
Winston Churchill was piped aboard HMS Tyne and dad after hearing him nightly on the wireless got a glimpse of their wartime leader in person. It was September 1941, the days growing chilly… Read More
A YouTube user calling himself BigDaddyAEL1964 saw the Dalí/Disney film Destino and what came to his mind was Time by Pink Floyd. It was a stroke of genius.
Salvador Dalí m… Read More
The mystery of the Mona Lisa smile is that the mystery has finally been solved.
Lisa del Giocondo is amused watching Leonardo da Vinci’s head pop out from behind the easel as he paint… Read More
Medusas in Cadaques – photo Clifford Thurlow
If someone shouts, ‘don’t look’ or ‘don’t look back,’ the natural instinct is to turn and have a good… Read More
The other night we received a message from a cactus and I laid in bed unable to sleep thinking about.
The cactus stands in the narrow passage at the back of our house in Cadaqués in a… Read More
Le Voyage dans la Lune
The first movie ever made was Le Voyage Dans la Lune (A Trip to the Moon) by the French pioneer Georges Méliès in 1902. He had shot more than 100 short f… Read More
In 1964 I was sixteen. I bought a black rollneck sweater and a pair of Cuban heeled boots from Anello & Davide in Coven Garden. I read The Outsider (L’Étranger) by Albert C… Read More
Salvador Dalí and Raquel Welch – A Kiss is Just a Kiss.
Salvador Dalí and Raquel Welch had absolutely nothing in common. He admired beautiful women without wishing to own… Read More
Offstage: Paul McCartney, Greg Allman and Bob Dylan.
When Paul McCartney was asked in HMV’s ‘My Inspiration’ campaign to name the songwriter who had most inspired him, he c… Read More
Clifford Thurlow at the Galería Patrick Domken van Schendel
The incurious eye misses the obvious, the subtle, the subtext. The incurious eye is glazed in a cataract of ignor… Read More
Will things go better with Rishi Sunak? Yes – but not for the poor.
What is capitalism? The corner shop baker selling his bread is capitalism. The rock singer uploading music to Spotif… Read More
Millet’s painting of The Angelus.
In his essay The Tragic Myth of The Angelus of Millet, Salvador Dalí interprets Jean-Francois Millet’s 1859 painting of a farmer in the f… Read More
In the land of small minds and minor talent, Dalí and Picasso were giants. They were men with visions wider than the horizon and the stamp they left on the 20th century remains… Read More
The Tory war on human rights will be raging across the tabloid press in the build up to the next general election. The Daily Mail and it’s partners in false news will be… Read More
BB & Bobby. Artwork: Eduardo Skinner
Bob Dylan and Brigitte Bardot were outriders, rule breakers, iconoclasts who became icons of the sixties revolution.
When Dylan in 1965 played L… Read More
Jacob Rees-Mogg – now on the telly with his ‘his eccentric anachronisms and far-right views.’
The Anti-Tax Avoidance Directive adopted by the European Union on 20 June 2016… Read More
Jeremy Hunt – the man with the scalpel.
Jeremy Hunt has blood on his hands that will never come off and a look of anguish in his eyes as his lifetime goal slips into the abys… Read More
Nadhim Zahawi and Rishi Sunak. Credit: Kim Mogg
There is a good reason why the rich always want more. Money provides status and connections. Big money makes you feel big, bigger than you are… Read More
Hunt and Sunak with jackets off.
People in the United States are living in a parallel universe.
Half the population believes the last presidential election was stolen from Donald Trump throu… Read More
Brigitte Bardot as a young girl was given twenty lashes from a whip by her father. The pain and embarrassment shaped her life, her career, her relationships with men and her desire to becom… Read More
The day George Harrison climbed the wall at Salvador Dalí’s surreal summer house didn’t take place for another week and during those seven days a large number of red rose… Read More
“That way!” Rishi Sunak and Tees Valley Mayor Ben Houchen know where we are going.
You. Me. Your neighbour. The postman. We don’t know who we are. You will never hear a Sco… Read More
People may tell you to just be yourself, but what they usually mean is ‘just be like me.’
Dylan plays Newport, 1965
It is human nature to believe we have made good choices… Read More
There is a very good reason why we must support striking nurses. They are striking in support of us all. They are striking against austerity, ‘stealth’ privatisation, inequality… Read More
Was it Mrs Thatcher’s dream to see pretty English beaches caked in fetid lumps of human excrement and untreated chemical waste?
When she said there was no such thing as society, did M… Read More
Dalí and Gala were a double act. She wasn’t his model or manager. He wasn’t her lover or provider. Gala was Gala, ruthless, implacable, that icy promiscuous fusion o… Read More
Baroness Mone
Michelle Mone is a thief. She should be in prison. She’s not. She’s either swanning through the House of Lords in ermine or disported on a luxury yacht in a bathing… Read More
Dalí beside André Breton with the Surrealists.
Salvador Dalí and religion never made a good fit. It is hardly surprising, then, that in 1935, aged thirty-one, Dalí… Read More
Bobby turned on the radio late one night in 1957 and the sound of Little Richard hammering out Tutti Frutti over over the airwaves changed his life.
Tutti frutti, oh rootie / … Read More
I’m the enemy of the unlived meaningless life.
This line struck me like the unexpected blow with the cane Zen teachers use to spark fire in the souls of acolytes on the edge of Nirva… Read More
Rishi Sunak and his wife Akshata – it’s just lovely being rich.
Social murder is a phrase applied to changes in government policy that lead to greater poverty and result in anxie… Read More
The Casino, Cadaqués
1984. Late spring. Armed with a hand-drawn map, a bag of figs and some tangerines, we set out to climb what our friend Eloy Ferrer had called the hidden hills of… Read More
The Chinese invaded Tibet in 1950 claiming the country was part of greater China. Nomadic warriors called Khambas, armed with swords, fought a guerrilla war against the Chinese for a d… Read More
HMS Eskimo
When dad took a second slice of cake or spent more time in the garden in the hot sun than mum thought wise, he would say: Don’t worry, Lily, you’re a long time dead.
M… Read More
It was the day after Christmas in 1936 when George Orwell stepped off the train in Barcelona and followed his map to the recruiting office of the POUM (Partido Obrero de Unificación… Read More