‘Those who control the image of the monarchy did not then know the power of indifference.’
I came across a portrait of Her Majesty Queen Elizabeth II in the National Gallery in London. In the picture, the Queen is long and thin. Except for her crown and the flecks of gold sprinkled on her pink dress, she might be Olive Oyl from the old Popeye cartoons. From her left hand she swings one of…
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‘The anglophone world, we have to infer, has run out of words for its own feelings.’
Daisy Hildyard on the wisdom of scarecrows.
‘What is the read receipt for?’
Lillian Fishman on texting, power and the ethics of leaving a friend on read.
‘Like pretty much everyone who uses the internet, I have seen many terrible things that I did not search for and that I cannot unsee.’
Rosanna McLaughlin on what the internet thinks she wants.
‘I have a pathological addiction to the internet, which I indulge with the excuse of making art. It rarely translates to anything good and mostly leaves me overstimulated and afraid.’
Paul Dalla Rosa on excess and the internet.
‘rumors of bees on speedwell, / no oxidative stress just / effortless pollination’
Two poems by Sylvia Legris.
‘There they found a man and a woman dressed in face masks, rubber gloves and white coats standing behind a white table on which were placed an assortment of tools’
‘It was a clear, uncomplicated space, a brand image, a label that could be stuck on a billion sauce bottles.’
‘It was 1 a.m., and it was Los Angeles; they were used to indiscretion.’
A story by Rhian Sasseen.
Caryl Phillips on being chosen as a Best of Young British Novelists in 1993 and the nascent culture of literary celebrity.
‘It was a peculiar, alopecic landscape of hummocks and gullies, with patches of grass growing on what looked like white earth, and rarely a soul to be seen.’
