EWAN CAMERON picks out two fascinating music shows, fusing the Korean, and the Celtic, with the modern
A military voice worth listening to
IAN SINCLAIR recommends a book that lucidly addresses many an aspect of the institution that is the British army
DIFFERENT BATTLEFIELD: British Army soldiers reinforce an embankment at Stainforth, near Doncaster, after a flooding
BENJAMIN POTHIER suggests that Palaeolithic cave paintings in Spain point to the ceremonial use of hallucinogenic flora
The bard confirms that the right has a humour bypass, and replays the English Revolution on period instruments
MARIA DUARTE and ANDY HEDGECOCK review Sunny Dancer, Tony, Songs of Forgotten Trees, and The End of Oak Street
JOHN GREEN relishes a powerful and moving drama that explores the lived realities of west London’s Punjabi community
MARTIN HALL welcomes a plea for greater compassion between believer and non-believer via the framework of philosophical enquiry
Veteranhood: Rage and Hope in British Ex-Military Life
by Joe Glenton
Repeater Books, £10.99
A WIDE-RANGING memoir-polemic, Joe Glenton sees his new book is an attempt “to address the commonly held idea that we vets are all irredeemably right-wing.”
Glenton, who served in Afghanistan with the British army’s Royal Logistical Corps before going Awol in 2007 and refusing to fight in the war, proves to be an excellent guide to this complex and often controversial topic, deploying lashings of black humour and military lingo (explained for the uninitiated).
Rather than “a reactionary blob,” he argues the military has always been a contested space, with a rich, though largely unknown, history of progressive dissent and resistance in the ranks.
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