Michael Rosen, the children's laureate, can't help but feel a tinge of glee at the recent SATs fiasco. "There is a bit of schadenfreude, if you like," he says, "a bit of celebration at their misfortune" – meaning the misfortune of the Government; or the Department for Children, Schools and Families; or ETS; or head teachers; or advocates of testing. Take your pick, Rosen has multiple gripes ...
With casual androgyny now as common as rehab and pop-star poetry a recurring joke, it's hard to imagine how strange Patti Smith must've seemed when she exploded out of New York with Horses 33 years ago. Defiant, literary, and rocking, Smith's debut, and the albums that followed, weren't only great pieces of art, they were life-changers. Just ask Michael Stipe or Courtney Love. They were ...
What's black and white and grey all over? Brendan Murphy As a young teenager, I went through a period where the only books I'd read were spy thrillers.
