Alone under the English skies - A LONE fishermen gets to grips with his trusty boat on a shingle beach. Is it the tides, depleted stocks or simply business as usual? >more

Embracing the spirit of his mother Russia - HE is the nephew of the former president of the collapsed Soviet Union, but over the years artist Yuri Gorbachev has made...>more

Tracing patterns in a symbolic world - THEY were first noted in the 13th century, and became a central plank of artistic expression for the ancient Jewish ...>more

In harmony with a vacuum cleaner - IN pride of place in Annetta Hoffnung’s Hampstead living-room is a large and immaculately polished tuba. >more

Milein’s artwork up for charity sale - ILLUSTRATOR Milein Cosman’s art work is much sought after – but now New Journal readers have the chance to hang ...>more

The secret world of ‘outsider’ art - SISTER Gertrude Morgan, the self-proclaimed “Bride of Christ”, received her first and only artistic commission from God himsel...>more

Deconstructing the building game - A HUGE white crane hangs, almost appropriately, over historic Somerset House in the Strand, as if to highlight an ...>more

Fame, I’m gonna chase it forever! - ZARA Zimmerman is a nasty piece of work. She is totally self-obsessed, and is driven by only one ambition – to be famous ...>more

Macabre baby farmers’ tale - ON a bleak winter’s night in 1902, an elderly looking woman stood loitering outside the Archway Tavern. Her name was Annie Walters. >more

Mexican uprising and a good idea on paper - A NEW exhibition at the British Museum tells the story of the Mexican revolution of 1910-20 and the political...>more

Sachs’ law on the judiciary - THERE’S still something of the old devil about him!
Just a fortnight after stepping down as South Africa’s most famous judge...>more

Miniature figures of the artist’s friends and acquaintances - FROM the Angel of the North to the proposed White Horse of Ebsfleet, from the various works ...>more

Somalia, where the teenagers of Camden go to ‘cool off’ - JOURNALISTS have a short life expectancy in Somalia, and as I touched down on the scorched ...>more

Looking beyond basic instincts - A FRENCH soldier wrote from the trenches to his father to say he had been doing some small pieces of sculpture, including a ...>more

A black Chartist’s role in revolution - IT was 1848, revolution was sweeping through Europe like wildfire and the British were on red alert. >more

Thirty years of the Fat Slags - THIRTY years of the Fat Slags, Roger Mellie, Johnny Fartpants et al is being celebrated at the Cartoon Museum in ...>more

Endgame: Beckett for a beginner? - THE fourth production of Endgame in London in a decade proves that Beckett’s most difficult play to bring off to an ...>more

Guilty pleasure X Factor is panto fun: oh yes it is - IT is essentially a programme for kids. For wild screaming kids who scream wildly at other kids who can sing...>more

It’s great Scott’s first 50 - A TINY advert in the classified section of Melody Maker appeared on October 23 1959: “Ronnie Scott’s Club, 39 Gerrard ...>more

Stitching the rich tapestry of a long life - FROM designing textile prints that became favourites with 1950s housewives, to helping modernist architect ...>more

Father and daughter retrospective - A BACKGROUND in anthropology was one of the sparks behind ceramic artist Jane Cox’s passion for working with clay. >more

Playing for UCH - A TROUPE of opera singers, classical soloists and music hall favourites will come together at Rosslyn Hill Chapel in Hampstead .>more

Novelist immortalises cemetery ‘chairman’ Jean - FOR years she has been the “face” of Highgate Cemetery, a figurehead for the Friends charity which ...>more

Big space for sculptor to poke fun - THIS is the Royal Academy itself on show. That is, its importance transcends even that of internationally renowned sculptor ...>more

Circus’s brave face is more than just an act - IN uncertain times, everything becomes a circus. People talk of the political circus, the media circus, the three-ringed ...>more

Moctezuma’s days brought back to life - PERHAPS some critics have taken the Moctezuma:Aztec Ruler, exhibition too much to heart.>more

Change at King's Cross - IT’s like a blank canvas, slowly being filled in by architects.
And how the 67-acre railway lands – essentially a large new town in the...>more

Artists’ ‘Species’ inspired by the travels of Darwin - AN exhibition by leading wildlife artists inspired by the great naturalist Charles Darwin and his voyages to... > more

Photographing Che - HIS face is one of the most iconic images the world has ever seen: Che Guevara’s bearded visage topped with a beret no longer simply ...>more

Revisiting the golden days of life in Silvertown - IT was the largest port in the world, the stock room of the British Empire’s trade, a teeming cauldron of humanity ...>more

Secret diary of Stevenson, the Heath common keeper - JOHN Stevenson lay still in the bushes and watched carefully as the gang of men dug up turf, sand and ...>more

Call for help from matriarch of the Carnival dance - I AM the head, the watchman, the fighter, the gun-lady,” declares Jean Bernard, 83-year-old Camden ...>more

In at the birth of modern sculpture - THE radical change that transformed British sculpture in the decade before the First World War is the focus for a...>more

Danish inpirations from rock to pop - DENMARK is best known for Hans Christian Andersen, Carlsberg and Lego, but it has another export. He goes by ...>more

Predators at the doors of innocence - THE darker side of lost innocence is the subject of a new exhibition of work by controversial artist Dameon Priestly. > more

Coming of age in a dangerous world - LOVE will get you killed, that’s all I know,” says Mario, one of two boys whose childhood in the streets and schools...>more

Snapshots of the ordinary - AS the son of an anarchist leader, with a sideline in politically conscious portraits of the working class, it would be easy to ...>more

Awards bestowed for dastardly deeds - MEDALS are usually handed out to celebrate heroic deeds. In war, sport and work, they are an indisputable... > more

‘I’ll bet you a case of fine port I’m right about the future of humanity’ - SCIENCE has always been a kissing cousin of the truth rather than truth itself. Sir Isaac... > more

Hugo Chavez – folk hero or enemy of ‘democracy’? - SOME years ago, while film-maker Pablo Navarrete was living in Venezuela, he was horrified at the... > more

Play your part in Roundhouse story - PLAYWRIGHT Sir Arnold Wesker recalls fearing that the leading man in the first-ever production at Centre 42 in the...>more

The pinch perfect work of realities - PLAYFUL and sinister images of a distorted virtual reality are on display in a Mayfair gallery. Seven examples from ...>more

Look again, and artefacts really are in different class - ON first glance, you may think that Classified is nothing new, that you’ve seen it all before – cabinets ...>more

‘My childhood ended when the police arrived’ - PATRICK Maguire was sleeping peacefully when a “giant” visited his aunt’s home in Kilburn.>more

Underneath the arches, dreams of new artistic talent - ARTIST Minne Weisz has turned her St Pancras brick arch studio into a gallery, with the aim of... > more

Sit down and tell us your story - IT is a similar idea to Antony Gormley’s Plinth project, that has seen people stand on the granite stone in Trafalgar... > more

An uneasy amble through the darker recesses of your mind - FOR those who like to mosey around a gallery, looking at pretty ­pictures and not ­thinking... > more

Why Waterhouse knowledge has remained a little sketchy - IT'S taken a long time. JW Waterhouse died in 1917 and, because of the First World War... > more

Drama addresses the disturbing question: is life really worth living? SARAH Kane was an English playwright who challenged convention. Her plays deal with ...>more

Radically altering the natural order - ART and nature have been bedfellows ever since cavemen discovered charcoal. But with the passing of time, humankind’s ...>more

Filipino dolls are dragged onto big screen! - DURING the day, Chiqui Diokno saves lives. The nurse, who works in Hampstead’s Royal Free Hospital... > more

Exhibiting the free artistic spirit - HOW free are the Free Painters and Sculptors? So free that they broke away from the Institute of Contemporary... > more

Can curbing pesticides help win fightback of the bumblebees? - ARE pesticides, genetically modified crops or mobile phones the cause? > more

Inspiration for the Impressionists - TAKE a right past the Trafalgar Square plinth and, within a minute, enter a different world of serene and beautiful... > more

Playing with Popeye – and his inflatable friends - FOR those of you who tune into
Cartoon Network on return from the pub and still hold a candle... > more

Painting humanity over the dark nightmare of barbarism - THE soldier Harry Gordon died at the Battle of Arnhem in 1945, his senses blown into... > more

Christ, Nietzsche and Pythons - CLIP CLOP, clip clop: the famous scene in Monty Python’s Holy Grail of the knight and his sidekick appearing... > more

Charlie’s licence to scare the kids - IN the post-apocalyptic near future, a mystery illness has wiped out all adult humans. > more

Beyond mere cuts of meat - TOMAS Watson first appeared on the art radar when he won the prestigious BP Portrait Award at the National Portrait Gallery in 1998.>more

The seagull has landed - THE voice on the other end of the line was thickly Gallic, and when it announced itself as that of Eric Cantona and said “I have an ...>more

Evolution and revolution in Sprint to the finish line - JUNE is the month to be a fly on the dressing room wall of the Camden People’s Theatre. >more

Fighting to scale walls of a ghetto - THEY had walked in complete silence for 30 kilometres through the night, leaving behind friends, family, homes ...>more

Simple steps to stop your plants being hung out to dry - IT'S been a topsy-turvy fortnight, with scorching sun then sloshing rain, so it’s the right time to tackle the ...>more

More things in Long’s Heaven and Earth - YOU'RE setting yourself up for failure with a title like Heaven and Earth, but it seems Richard Long has the god-like ...>more

Northern Celts catch the beat of weekend festival - A HEADY poteen of traditional and contemporary Irish folk music, The Northern Celts have been raising ...>more

Flip side to artistry of Miles Davis - EVERYONE knows Miles Davis.
His tunes are played by buskers, pub players and profession ...>more

New tragi-comic format for the Bard - SHAKESPEARE’S plays keep their place in contemporary culture because they remain relevant to a modern day ...>more

When cows ran amok - THE residents of Camden New Town always knew “a dangerous lot” of cows were coming when the cattle drovers made a line across ...>more

‘We will never come to terms with this corruption’ - WRITING Beyond The Fire, a film about a man abused by a family friend who is also member of Ireland’s ...>more

‘Everyday’ humanity on canvas - IF he had not been poisoned by the huge amounts of lead he handled as an apprentice printer, it is likely Josef Herman ...>more

‘Soil is the most precious thing’ - Just imagine it – King’s Cross as a food growing paradise: vineyards and veg plots, ripe pineapples harvested from ...>more

A shot in the leg for poetry? - EVEN as a young soldier, before he made the mistake of shooting his general in the foot, literature was in Fred Grubb’s blood. >more

Comedy, beat poetry and bear hunts - POETS, the writer GK Chesterton observed, were “mysteriously silent on the subject of cheese”. Certainly the...>more

National saviour or monster from the blue lagoon? - SHE still haunts us.
As the turmoil over MPs’ expenses continues apace with public anger...>more

Duels with Jude - EVERY morning Alex Waldmann wakes up, goes to work and kills Jude Law. Law, a Hollywood star of some staying power, does not go ...>more

Lives less ordinary captured on camera - OVER the past four decades the Camden Society has worked with and supported hundreds of people with ...>more

Now Lido offers a summer evening dip - HEADING to the Lido before school as a little boy actually put me off swimming for some time. I couldn’t understand why ...>more

Ex-con goes back inside a prison’s history- THE parallels between today and the 1720s are obvious, according to Camden Town-based TV presenter Piers Hernu. >more

Pianist with a passion to save the classics - BLUE rinses, move to one side, or get ready to rock: the days of classical music being the sole domain of older people ...>more

Chelsea to Basra and back - FIVE per cent of sales of Chelsea artist Arabella Dorman’s works from this exhibition will be donated to the Army Benevolent Fund...>more

Testament on the bombardment of Palestinian Gaza - IF you’ve ever done jury service you’ll know that sitting in judgment is a difficult thing. But for lawyers on ...>more

Intimate portrait of mental illness - THE World Health Organisation estimates that by 2025 mental illness will be the second-biggest global health problem ...>more

If Miss fits... Outrageous beauties vie for a crown - MIRROR, mirror, on the wall, who is the most outrageous of them all? In 1975, it was the film-maker ...>more

Journeying through a Lenkiewicz imagination - I load the gun, and let you pull the trigger,” says Wolfe von Lenkiewicz as we stare at Paradise Lost, his giant ...>more

Museum’s darkest secrets could see the light of day - THIS is Orson Welles speaking from London,” the radio would blurt out in the early 1950s, before the ...>more

Bidding to protect human rights - IN the field of human rights, The Helen Bamber Foundation, founded in 2005, is a relative newcomer. >more

Art auction bidding to preserve work of human rights charity - IN the field of human rights, The Helen Bamber Foundation, founded in 2005, is a relative ...>more

Images of the far-flung wonders of the world - WHILE some photographers content themselves with Tower Bridge by night, Nicki Grihault favours ...>more

Dearest Heart - THE young woman pored over her work in semi-darkness, with just one table lamp shining a pool of light on her bureau. She sat behind the ...>more

Scholars recall poets’ London affair - IT'S 1872: Arthur Rimbaud, the teen literary sensation, has seduced his mentor Arthur Verlaine and the pair are ...>more

Life’s tragedy stripped bare - NEWSPAPERS have their own style, and if you had to define the Guardian’s, you would have to put in the artwork of Posy ...>more

Art from across the Gobi desert - AS the former chief artist for the Mongolian Postal Service, Otgonbayar Tod’s work has travelled across the Gobi desert and ...>more

Breath of Life another side of Hare - SIR David Hare is perhaps best known now for his urgent political theatre addressing the tangled webs of the Gaza Strip or... > more

Caroline didn’t sink, it’s afloat in Archway - UNDER the cover of darkness, he would head to a foggy port in the Thames estuary or along the Essex coast ...>more

Hilarious sexed-up spin antics, but they’ve cost many lives - IT doesn’t matter if it is true or not, it happened.” Malcolm Tucker, the terrifying, eye-bulging spin ...>more

Portraits of the Austen era - BRITAIN’S most famous artist will always be associated with landscapes. But while John Constable (1776-1837) has done much...>more

Great forest of King’s Cross - HER first brush stroke came not long after the first ton of concrete had been poured into the ground. Now, with the ....>more

Sorry Groucho, there may not always be an Olivelli's - AS long as there is an Olivelli,” Groucho Marx once wrote, “there will always be an England.” ...>more

Bold witness of a war-torn world - HEWN out of the various limestone blocks in Terry McGinity’s garden workshop are scenes and subjects one... > more

Sorry Groucho, there may not always be an Olivelli's - AS long as there is an Olivelli,” Groucho Marx once wrote, “there will always be an England.”... > more

New audience awaits the mysteriously absent Rosemary Tonks - ROSEMARY Tonks, the poet, disappeared from the luxurious home she shared... > more

Keeping alive a tragic story of death - YOU wait for one West Yorkshire police brutality drama and four come along at... > more

From a career in pop to a life planing pine - HIS voice doesn’t waiver. “Yes, I’m confident, absolutely confident,” insists Stephen Skolnik, pop star... > more

The unfinished Sunday night symphony - WAR drums are sounding in classical music land, with Euston Road the unlikely battleground, in a feud... > more

Age concern of film-maker Armstrong - COPENHAGEN, Denmark: December, 2009. Heads of state from around the world will sit down to sign... > more

Van Dyck: Britain's best painter? - HE might be known as the Dutch master but that doesn’t stop us trying to poach him as one of our own. Anthony van Dyck spent...>more

Happy to suffer for Heston’s high art - FIRST, let me introduce myself. I am a Fat Duck survivor. I have eaten every Douglas Fir purée and bacon ice cream... > more

Who’s vexed? Rival ‘blue plaque’ for Moon puts heritage row centre stage - IT was two fingers up to English Heritage and the snooty judges who didn’t think services... > more

Lore and disorder - EVERY year, on the morning of January 6, 200 hale and hardy local men gather in the small village of Haxey in Lincolnshire. > more

Picasso as a cultural cannibal - THE grand master and most prolific artist of the 20th century is seen in a new light as part of this Challenging the Past... > more

Panik on streets of London - THE police came knocking first thing in the morning and, considering much of his work is done in the early hours... > more

A photography first and a 50-year choice - THE first-ever photography exhibition to be held at The Boundary Gallery starts this week. > more

Touched by the acting bug – but not for the very first time - IT has taken Sadie Frost some time to shake off the tabloid shackles that saw her private life discussed... > more

Living with accidents of time and place - TURNER Prize-winner Mark Wallinger is one of Britain’s foremost artists, achieving the hard-to-obtain balance between... > more

Critic Nicholas de Jongh takes to the stage - AS the shadow precedes Nosferatu, Nicholas de Jongh’s reputation goes before him. > more

Strange silence of the Buddhist of suburbia - A SPIRITED, self-styled Bud dhist monk called Redwood Thomas Walcott Fryxell has been sheltering... > more

Insight Stories - AS if she were playing a game of hide and seek, photographer Julia Sasse peeks round corners and peers through windows. > more

New order is in the post - POSTMODERNISM is dead.
We are now entering a new world order, proclaims the curator of ...>more

Crossrail may wash Jupp’s fountains away - TRENDS come and go. What in one decade is seen as cutting edge will fall from grace, only to be ...>more

Good Scot, bad Scot - ACERBIC Scots with language to make a Newcastle manager blush are Paul Higgins’s stock-in-trade. The Lanarkshire actor ...>more

How 24-hour headlines are breaking news - THE highly intelligent wife of a friend of mine has just bought herself a pair of ear plugs. She uses them whenever the news ...>more

When the beautiful game turns ugly - GLENN Helder is angry his showboating talents with a football haven’t made him a millionaire, even if by his own account it ...>more

Much Ardó about nothing... FOR many artists “ordinary” is the last taboo. Zsuzsanna Ardo disagrees. Her photographs are odes to the normal. “It’s the old question of ...>more

Body images of our transient existence - “THESE paintings are images of the body in terms, not of one’s own subjectivity, but in terms of another, observing subjectivity.” > more

The accent has got to be on hope - WHEN author Beryl Bainbridge attacked the Scouse accent of her hometown Liverpudlians on the radio last week, it was a minor... > more

Our literary legal lion, who was born on the right side of the Heath - HE was born in The Pryors, off East Heath Road, and spent his toddler years in elegant ...>more

Final and fatal hellraising of a rock star - ON February 18, 1980, Bon Scott, the wild-eyed frontman of the Australian rock band AC/DC, raised hell for the last time. >more

All in the mind: a novelist in an analyst’s arena - EVER since the arrival of psychoanalysis in this country its practitioners have struggled to overcome ...>more

An audience with the Master - Veteran actor and Coronation Street star Edward De Souza tells Gerald Isaaman about the day Noel Coward dropped in at the ...>more

Kinetic art and sculpture link - TWO of the top names in contemporary art are having a joint show of kinetic art and sculptures at Rollo Contemporary Art in Cleveland ...>more

Uncharted Rhodes – the lost man of letters - ON the morning of November 27 last year, a cheap plywood coffin slipped into the flames at the Islington crematorium in...>more

An audience with Stevie Smith - FORGET all your spoilt-brat men poets (Stevie regarded some of them as such): your famous Seamuses, your Hugheses, your Audens ...>more

Finding ways to face up to an old problem - WE are, we are told ad nauseam, a nation of older people. The government does its bit by way of recognition in the ...>more

How a stroppy caretaker was one of the first to ‘get’ Pinter - HAROLD Pinter’s death last week comes at a poignant moment in the history of the Hampstead Theatre...>more

A typical teenager in extraordinary times - IF Anne Frank had survived the atrocities of the Nazi concentration camps she would be 79 years old now. That this little ...>more

Oscar a serious ordeal for ‘silly’ actor - IN his 40-year career Jim Broadbent has worked with some of the greatest names in film and theatre, including Woody Allen... > more

Going walkabout in the footsteps of Coward - ON Noel Coward’s birthday and just a short walk from the theatre in which he first shot to fame, a new cabaret season... > more

The father of modern Christmas - IT has become a byword for the season, as much part of the lexicon of festivities as Father Christmas, holly, turkey and crackers. > more

Is traditional panto just a stage joke? Oh no it isn’t! - CLIVE Rowe is not the woman he once was. Defrocked and out of his heels in his dressing room between... > more

Sailing back to Byzantium - BLOCKBUSTER exhibitions are rarely worth the hype but Byzantium is an exception. A long dead 1,000 year empire on the... > more

Tribute to the boys who rebuilt London - IT’s early morning outside Camden Town Tube station in the 1960s and dozens of Irishmen are waiting for work. > more

Jewish life before post-modern society - AT the turn of the 19th century, postcards were the equivalent of text messages – the quickest and cheapest... > more

Spring in St Pancras - ALL you need is love for the spring performance of the St Pancras Poets. > more

Names in print -SCREEN printing is sometimes unfairly seen as the runt of the art world litter. But ever since Andy Warhol thought Marilyn... > more

Shape of a life lived for sharing - DINERS at the Mango Room in Camden Town might not notice them straight away, but once you see Mbuyisa... > more

Sex and mythology in a family affair - THE Zsako family don’t talk to each other about art, though all four of them are... > more

Poetry of the self: it’s in the way you tell it - AN unquenchable thirst for fun is a major subject of Salena Godden’s barnstorming poetry: it’s literary... > more

Complex vision – opening the Barbican to a wider audience - HEAD and shoulders above Elgar, Purcell or the lush strains of Delius, tact was top bil ling during... > more

Back on stage, but ‘Magenta’ will never kiss her Rocky role goodbye - MY reputation in this town is ruined,” whisper the world’s most famous lips. Patricia Quinn...>more

Peter Elliott - People say he’s monkeying around - IN his 30-year career, Peter Elliott has been attacked by most of the animal kingdom: chased by black mane...>more

Roll up, roll up for the Circus of Life - WELL it’s not Turner prize, certainly, but John Afflick has an intriguing solo show The Circus of Life at the Gallery Kaleidoscope. The ...>more

Go Johnny, go go go - EYES rolling, guitar at his side and a microphone in danger of being chomped in half – you can almost hear Chuck Berry beating out a ...>more

Collage art a cut above - ETHEL Shoul was head of art at William Ellis School until she retired 11 years ago. Since then her career as an artist has taken off...>more

Red studio painter misses out on show - MILES Richmond, an artist who, like his inspir ational tutor David Bomberg, never achieved the true recognition he...>more

‘Ex-offender’ in frame for right reasons - THERE was a time when Dean Stalham couldn’t move for Warhol originals. Marilyn Monroe was in his Land Rover’s ...>more

One thousand years of Byzantine beauty - A SPRAWLING mongrel empire is the description used for this enigma by historian and broadcaster Bettany Hughes ...>more

An ancient protest in bitter modern times - WHEN the death of their fellow democratically elected Member of Parliament, Bobby Sands, was announced...>more

A 70s home that is worth conserving... NUMBER 22 Frognal Way in Hampstead has had the wrecker’s ball hanging over it for more than a year: its owners applied to ...>more

My farce! Royle Family star fights his flying picket conviction, 36 years on - INDIGNATION is Ricky Tomlinson’s stock in trade. His grumpy TV patriach...>more

Corinne and the killing of Audrey - SHE has performed alongside screen legends like Elizabeth Taylor, danced with Frankie Howerd and taken the bow at the ...>more

Curious world in ceramics - VERA Friere has her own unique take on Lewis Carroll’s Alice in Wonderland, and she expresses it through her art – ceramics.>more

Lasting impressions of Leibovitz - FOR the first time, the works of arguably the world’s most famous photographer will go on show all in one place.>more

Winston’s historic struggle for youth - THE sign has long gone and the youngsters who lived there probably have grown-up children of their own. > more

Master of forbidden, malevolent territory - WE live in tough, corrupt... > more

Artists have an X-ray vision for hospital archive project - RUDYARD Kipling lay in state in its chapel, Peter Sellers died there, Marie Stopes... > more

Ray Davies pays homage to the Ilford Palais days - IT’S been 26 years since Ray Davies, lead singer of The Kinks, first invited listeners... > more

A tale of two cities Berlin and London - WHEN Pamina Liebert-Mahrenholz was interned in Holloway Prison, her artistic drive was such... > more

George Blake - The ‘Red spy’ who slipped over the prison wall - RUNNING out of leads, stumped Home Office chiefs chasing George Blake, the... > more

Like father… like daughter, Najla takes on political role - NAJLA Said flops down in a chair, exhausted. The daughter of the famous Palestinian intellectual, Edward ...>more

McCarthy rolls out her latest work - TO question the concept of luxury and economy is simple enough, but to explore this through the means of a traditional ...>more

New reverence for technology - THE Cyborg sculptures looming eerily in the cool dark alcoves of St Pancras Crypt from today (Thursday) could symbolise a ...>more

Supremes and the sequins of success - IT'S just a pop show filled with those fabulous clothes worn by the queens of song, I thought. This is The Supremes – ...>more

What censors kept backstage - THE British Library has thrown a spotlight on the bizarre practice of censorship in an exhibition on theatre’s golden era. >more

Threading the needle of figurative art - CLOSE to 3,000 entered the prestigious Threadneedle competition which honours the best figurative work in the country.>more

Off her trolley over lack of age concern - A NEW one-woman play exploring Britain’s appalling treatment of the elderly and those who care for them is being staged...>more

Life in the East End of a small planet - WHEN the air raid siren sounded, the sensible response would be to find the nearest available... > more

A world of cats to get your paws into - IF you’ve got a phobia of felines and are mortified by moggies, steer well clear of this one. > more

St Pancras’s inner-city health resort - FOR the boys leaping off the top board at the Parliament Hill Lido, the opening of a new swimming... > more

Rowan Williams - Going with the flow along the river of faith - ONCE upon a time churchmen/poets were two a penny – well, two a pound. > more

The vivid genius of Kosovan artist Visar Hyseni - VISAR Hyseni has packed a great deal into his 30 years. A Kosovan from Prishtina, he was... > more

Yearning for a great trouper like Elaine Stritch - BROADWAY icon Elaine Stritch garnered nightly standing ovations and critical adulation... > more

Wyndham Lewis and a Naïve Blast into the future - WYNDHAM Lewis was a mixed up man – brilliant people often are when it comes to human relationships. >more

Framing the spirit of Hampstead Heath - TURNER and Constable committed the beauty of the Heath to canvas. The rolling landscape has always brought artists...>more

The meths drinker saved by chess who wrote a modern classic - A BOTTlE of “Blue” was a cheap way to tackle the cravings for alcohol. It also took the edge off ...>more

Diary of a visual wit - MOST artists keep notebooks of sketches, ideas and scribbles, but ask them to put them on show and they’d probably run for the hills ...>more

He’s electric! Eddy Grant’s hometown memories - WHEN Eddy Grant takes to the Jazz Café stage tomorrow (Friday), the Caribbean-born singer-songwriter will feel ...>more

Feet that trod my stairs in ancient times belonged to a hero - QUITE by accident I discovered that Frederick Tatham, a close friend of the great poet, artist ...>more

A hard act to swallow - AMY Saunders began her performance career as an extrovert teenager flyerer (that’s someone who hands out flyers) at Camden Town Tube.>more

See talent of Tinho, even if ‘graffiti’ isn’t up your street - FROM the hillside favelas of Sao Paulo, Brazil, where the law of the gun reigns, to the... > more

Exposing the real deal - AMAR has sold drugs on the streets of Camden Town since he was 15 years old. You’ve probably seen him or his... > more

Still running – and right up to speed with the latest technology - IT seems almost every time you walk down Parkway these days you are greeted by... > more

London’s fare city through a cabbie’s lens - OTHER taxi drivers regard Dominic Shannon with suspicion. Whether they are waiting... > more

Death knell sounds for home of supernatural - IN a restricted-access room in a dark London tower there is, according to some, proof... > more

Underdog turns into a barking megalomaniac - GENTLE underdogs” are the roles traditionally reserved for Andy Nyman. The 42-year-old actor, probably ...>more

Artist a long way from home - SERGEI Chepik is an artist with surprising – and contrasting – passions. Paris is one, Venice another, both a long way from his ...>more

Ron’s reggae icons in the studio - IT has the air of an abandoned storeroom in a light industrial unit: but from these humble surroundings the record label ...>more

Cash: the money shot - PRECIOUS photographs of musical legend Johnny Cash that went missing were presumed lost forever, but after ... > more

Opera’ festival is a changing scene - WHEN the stately tragedy of Ibsen’s Rosmersholm draws to a close at the Almeida next week, you might... > more

Silly not shocking, Academy Summer Show leaves a chill - IT'S 240 years old and the biggest open show of its kind in the world. So, inevitably... > more

Le Carre's son stands tall in his own write - HE is clever, upbeat, confident and has a touch of his handsome... > more

Francis’s tale of two cities: the West End, real and imagined - THE paintings of veteran photo-realist Mike Francis are a sight to behold. With his glossy... > more

Brutal truth behind the tortue at Guantanamo - TORTURE Team is probably the best piece of contemporary investigative journalism you... > more

Milton to inspire the Underground - THE ideals of John Milton, the poet whose Republican views saw him cast as the laureate of... > more

Messing about for on the water - A WEEKEND spent driving an ageing juggernaut through the backyards of London’s industrial heartlands. Doesn’t sound... > more

One final push as Spirit drama festival gets into gear - MATT Ball doesn’t get much sleep. A few hours a night, if he’s lucky. Over the past few months the... > more

William Hall's rocky road as he chased the stars of Hollywood - WILLIAM Hall’s office at the top of his Highgate home is decked out in memorabilia, the fruits of a... > more

A Frenchman's American dream - FROM his paintings and posters you would think he was an American, steeped in its culture of flashy fast cars amid neon light...>more

Mouse heads for star billing - “WHEN Islington artist Nick Botting was commissioned to paint actor singer Michael Ball it was with the understanding that the... > more

We laughed, cried and drank - A PHOENIX entered my life in October 1966, when I first met the Irish writer Nuala O’Faolain, who died on May 9. Nuala not so much... > more

A sight of the great unseen - FRANCES Newman used to be a nurse at University College London Hospital before she became an artist. And for the past 18... > more

Hospital with an art condition - THE Scene Unseen exhibition showing at University College London Hospital is a nurse’s tribute to those who spend every working... > more

Poets stay loyal to the spirit of the Pentameters - IN the summer of 1968, as the spirit of revolution raged in Paris, a group of poets, artists and musicians gathered... > more

Animal search is a bit hit and myth - SEARCHING for myths is hard work – just ask cryptozoologist Richard Freeman. In pursuit of the world’s “anomalous and... > more

'Hitler shook the tree and we collected the apples' - WHEN artists fled for their lives from Nazi Germany in the 1930s, Hampstead became a destination for many and... > more

Painful truth of torture examined - UNDER a national crisis,” says Spencer Tracy in his summary at the end of the 1961 film Judgement at Nuremberg. > more

A historian's vision of the troubles ahead - IF the past informs us about the future, Marxist historian Eric Hobsbawm can provide a fascinating glimpse of what...>more

‘She soars, she floats and she is operatic’ - WHEN Gemma Rosefield was five, she had piano lessons. “Don’t waste your money,” said the teacher to her parents. >more

Turning over a second-hand leaf - IT has survived the arrival of congestion charge zone and the internet and the rise of the chain store book outlets. The Amwell Book...>more

The state they’re in, 60 years on - IS the 60th anniversary of the creation of the state of Israel a date for celebration, or reflection? Ivor Dembina, the Jewish compere ...>more

The judge who ended up on the ‘most wanted’ list - HE'S an eligible man – and a lucky one. When His Honour Judge Christopher Osgood sadly becomes a widower...>more

It’s life drawing: but not as we’ve come to know it - THE MYSTERY art collector was so annoyed by the lack of basic draughtsmanship in contemporary art he...>more

Stirring songs of Spain, two centuries later- TWO hundred years ago in May, there was a huge uprising in Spain, and England was the destination of a wave of ...>more

The stories sleeping lions can tell - AWARD-winning American novelist Audrey Niffenegger, who travels from her Chicago home to work as a tour guide at ...>more

Chatting round at Sigmund’s - THEY are the kind of guests the ghost of Sigmund Freud would welcome, if he were stalking the corridors of the Hampstead home where ...>more

McCartney’s record goes platinum - LIFE begins at 40. At least it has with a bang for ebullient James Hyman, whose belief in the British art market has given him ...>more

Milein’s window on the world of workmen - THE pictures feature some of the most iconic names in arts and letters of the 20th century – alongside sketches and paintings...>more

Mike Leigh: Happy talk - WATCH Sally Hawkins cy c ling through Holborn to the jovial harrumphs of a brass band, her halcyon clubbing episode at Koko or the ...>more

Artist’s ‘poem’ for a neighbour who told her to paint- Stevas, who is curating the art show Poem for Fanya at Camden Town’s Theatro Technis this week, has a...>more

Ex-comrades everywhere... - LORD Denis Healey, a former Labour Chancellor of the Exchequer, was once asked which was the biggest party in the House of Lords. > more

CND: or how Derrick learned to make movies and hate the bomb - WHEN Richard Burton got the call he was busy working on John Osborne’s play Look... > more

Reporting from Iraq: ‘anyone different is a potential target’ - THE Independent’s defence correspondent Kim Sengupta dwells in a house in Highgate when... > more

Calling style-conscious cyclists - BOBBIN Bicycles is the type of business that would have been inconceivable as little as five years ago.>more

Historic take on the birth of Modernism- FROM John Sloan’s first tentative forays into Modernism to the amorphous, paint-splattered symphonies of Jackson ...>more

Timely reminders of a beautiful borough - TEACHING keep fit provided artist John Joseph with more than just a living while he spent his spare time painting.>more

So many changes in such a short time - PROCLAIMED as the “doyenne of columnists”, Katharine Whitehorn has observed and passed comment on many of...>more