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Famous literary drunks and addicts

Life magazine has a terrific photographic portfolio up on its site of famous drunks and substance abusers - with quotes - including Dorothy Parker: "One more drink and I'll be under the host",  Jack Kerouac: "I'm a Catholic and and I can't commit suicide, but I plan to drink myself to death" and Charles Baudelaire: "Always be drunk... get drunk militantly"  and other literary types knocking back the booze including Ernest Hemingway, Dylan Thomas and Tennessee Williams. Link here.

Birthdays on the Tube: 7-13 February

Gene Vincent, Sergio Mendes, Alban Berg, Carole King and Leopold Godowsky

This week's birthday musicians include Gene Vincent singing "Be Bop A Lula" in his first TV appearance, Sergio Mendes with "Mas Que Nada", soul balladry from Roberta Flack, Carole King and a couple of composers - Alban Berg and Leopold Godowsky. Some seriously groovy videos, below.

Is it too late to save the Cultural Olympiad?

A new committee, a new chief, a new salary, but still no one knows what it means

We’d almost blown the so-called Cultural Olympiad, and if the appointment of Ruth Mackenzie as artistic director had come a moment later than the turn of this year, we would have done. Not my opinion: this from Tony Hall of the Royal Opera House, and he chairs the board that appointed her. More than that, on Friday Hall was given a cross-bench seat in the House of Lords to thump the tub for the arts in 2012, and we’ll take notice then. Won’t we?

An eruption of pop-up cinemas

Pop-up cinemas, like restaurants, shops and galleries, are, well, popping up all over the place these days, but one of the pioneers has been Secret Cinema. This outfit claims, grandly, to have been "revolutionising the traditional cinematic experience" ever since December 2007 and its Facebook page boasts over 26,000 fans. It would seem that the secret is out.

In fair Leicester where we lay our scene

Orchestras and theatre companies rarely collaborate. The current revival of Tom Stoppard’s Every Good Boy Deserves Favour enlists the services of the Southbank Sinfonia. Apart from that, concert musicians and actors steer clear of each other. You can see why. It costs a lot of money to employ an orchestra. And once you’ve put 70-plus musicians on a stage, there’s no much room for anyone else. Undaunted by pragmatism, next month brings a collaboration between the Royal Shakespeare Company and the Philharmonia Orchestra. And 250 schoolchildren.

Gorillaz go Thunderbirds

The animated band Gorillaz have revealed their new HQ in the South Pacific - a floating island atop a pile of trash at Point Nemo, the furthest place, they inform us, from land on Earth. It's all very, very Tracey Island from Thunderbirds. See the remarkable video below.

So farewell to the Foundry

Raging, but not always pretty, creativity is everywhere in The Foundry

Notorious bar founded by music industry mavericks loses fight against gentrification

My abiding memory of The Foundry is being held aloft by my throat by the landlord, Falklands veteran and notorious band manager Alan "Gimpo" Goodrick, as he accused me of stealing a Shirley Bassey album. I had been DJing for a book reading by Mark "Zodiac Mindwarp" Manning, and there was a lot of absinthe being drunk thanks to some fellow from The Idler. I knew at that point I shouldn't have begun the evening by playing the line "there may be trouble ahead" from Bassey's version of "Let's Face the Music and Dance" over and over on a loop. It's a dreadful cliché to say knowingly of a bar "it was that kind of place", but really, it was that kind of place.

Jewish Book Week

It's not every literary festival which unites around a single idea. Jewish Book Week is an exception. Not that every one of the 130 speakers who appear on the podium at the Royal National Hotel between 27 February and 7 March will necessarily be Jewish.


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