George

George Orwell’s years as a colonial policeman in Burma in the 1920s preoccupied him for the rest of his life. Straight out of Eton, he was thrown into a world that mirrored the public school with its rivalries and floggings; except that now it was the Burmese people who were being flogged. He wrote about it repeatedly: in his 1934 novel Burmese Days, several essays, and passages devoted to Burma in The Road to Wigan Pier. Even on his deathbed he was writing notes for a novella about Burma entitled A Smoking Room Story.…

The Royal Mint has added George Michael to its Music Legends series, producing three collectible coins featuring the late pop star.Available in gold, silver, and silver, red and black, the coin shows Michael wearing the aviator sunglasses and cross-shaped earring from the video for his 1987 solo single Faith, along with a guitar fretboard. The back features an engraving of the song’s refrain.The Royal Mint said the coin had been approved by Michael’s estate. A representative from George Michael Entertainment said it was…

Deeply heartfelt and revealing letters from Eric Clapton to Pattie Boyd while she was married to George Harrison are to be sold at auction, laying bare one of rock’s most notorious love triangles.Boyd was a model and an icon of swinging London in the 1960s, marrying Harrison in 1966 after meeting him on the set of Beatles film A Hard Day’s Night – she claimed he wrote the Beatles ballad Something about her, though he later denied it. Towards the end of the decade Harrison and Clapton began writing music together, and…

It has been confirmed that Game Of Thrones author George R.R. Martin did not contribute any new ideas to Elden Ring expansion Shadow Of The Erdtree. Martin assisted with “a bit of worldbuilding” for Elden Ring, after being contacted by FromSoftware, helping to create “the backstory and history” for the title despite not being a huge fan of video games. The “offer was just too exciting to refuse,” he explained. Developers wanted “a deep, dark, resonant world to serve as a foundation for the game they planned to create,”…

After spending a summer reading George Orwell in between looking after her teenage children, the Australian author and former human rights lawyer Anna Funder observed how few references the Nineteen Eighty-Four author made to the women in his life. She was especially dismayed by the absence of Eileen O’Shaughnessy, Orwell’s first wife, who joined her husband on research trips and who died while undergoing surgery aged 39. And so in the genre-bending Wifedom – which has been shortlisted for the Gordon Burn prize ­– Funder…

The Beatles legends John Lennon, Paul McCartney, George Harrison and Ringo Starr will be the subject of an upcoming feature film. The four separate films will tell the stories of each of them in standalone narratives. The films will be directed by the Oscar-nominated filmmaker Sam Mendes. He plans to make four separate movies, one from each Beatles member’s point of view. They will intersect to “tell the astonishing story of the greatest band in history,” leading up to their 1970 breakup, according to a…

Image: Universal PicturesSteven Spielberg wouldn’t be where he is without his crucial collaborators George Lucas and Kathleen Kennedy. And you could say any of the trio have stepped in to save the day on a number of each other’s films through advice and in some cases even taking over directing duties. Without them we wouldn’t have the Star Wars, Indiana Jones, or Jurassic Park franchises.Spoilers of the Week | June 10thIn an interview with the Hollywood Reporter, Spielberg revealed a glorious bit of DNA about the making…

Those, and there are many of us, who balk at the Alpine crags and chasms of the numerous big Byron biographies, may happily take a stroll over the level ground of this unassuming yet impressively comprehensive volume. Stauffer, professor of English at the University of Virginia and president of the Byron Society of America, manages, with the aid of a choice handful of the poet’s vivid and hugely entertaining letters, to fashion a rounded portrait, venereal scars and all, of one of the prime movers of the Romantic…

On Saturday, former Congressman George Santos sued late-night host Jimmy Kimmel, accusing him of “fraud” over the use and obtainment of Santos’ Cameo videos. At the time, Kimmel didn’t comment, instead using last night’s episode of Jimmy Kimmel Live as an opportunity to reflect on the lawsuit. “We had a three-day weekend,” Kimmel said, opening the show. “It was an eventful weekend for me. Did anyone else get sued by George Santos this weekend? I am currently embroiled in what may be the most preposterous lawsuit…

Well, here’s a post that should come as no surprise to Tom Sandoval’s PR team, or the public relations folks at Bravo, or even Vanderpump Rules executive producer Alex Baskin: The widely reviled reality star went ahead and tossed out a half-baked comparison between the media attention garnered by “Scandoval” with that of the O.J. Simpson trial or the police murder of George Floyd in The New York Times. The quotes appear in an extensive profile of Sandoval that digs into how the villain of the infamous Vanderpump…