As news emerges that actor Ricky Tomlinson and members of the so-called Shrewsbury 24 are to have their 1970s convictions reviewed by the Criminal Cases Review Commission, we look at the role played in that conviction by Woodrow Wyatt’s Red Under the Bed documentary. The Monocled Mutineer wasn’t the only occasion that the book’s author…
Month: April 2024
Back to New York with Ambassador Bryce. Freedom in the Old World. Censorship in the New World.
In this final look look at Scott and Zelda Fitzgerald’s trip to Europe in 1921 we see the couple head back on the RMS Celtic to New York. Topics include The Anglo-Irish Treaty, the publication of James Joyce’s Ulysses, Shane Leslie’s review of Ulysses, Prince Val Engalitcheff, the Cotillo-Jesse Clean Book Bill and Sherwood Anderson’s…
American Dreamer — Listen now at Audible.co.uk. Who was the Real Jay Gatsby?
It’s 11.30am on Friday, June 23 2023. I’ve been rifling the archives and punching in keywords for the past few hours. Suddenly I’m excited. I’ve found a report in a copy of Variety Magazine dated July 27, 1927. It’s unlikely to have been seen by another pair of eyes for close to a 100 years….
Fitzgerald back in London: The Hotel Cecil, the Empire Council and the Fourth of July Celebrations
In Part One of this look at Scott Fitzgerald’s trip to Europe in the summer of 1921 we discovered that when the author left for England on the R.M.S Aquitania on May 3rd he was joined by some of the most prominent men in New York and Washington including the new American Ambassador, George Harvey,…
The Usual ‘Unusual’ Suspects
“I was immediately struck by the number of young Englishmen dotted about; all well dressed, all looking a little hungry, and all talking in low, earnest voices to solid and prosperous Americans.” The Great Gatsby I’d like to go back to another Max Gerlach conundrum. On Max’s 1942 World War II Draft Registration Card, Gerlach…