Secret sisters: Was David Bowie’s ‘The Bewlay Brothers’ inspired by Christina Rossetti’s ‘Goblin Market’?
A theory. Go with me here. Step out of yourself. Just for one day. There was always something that fascinated and bugged me about Bowie’s ‘The Bewlay Brothers’. It’s the oddest thing on Hunky Dory by a mile, and that’s saying something. Chris O’Leary and Nicholas Pegg have both written beautifully about it,…
Rockin’ in the free world: Gorbachev, poppies and the death of Kurt Cobain
If you really want to know about Nirvana – from who killed Kurt Cobain to the rise of grunge and the Generation X tag – don’t listen to the conspiracy theories; ask a historian. The news of Kurt Cobain’s suicide broke 20 years ago today. The anniversary of his death – which probably…
Premiere: Official preview clip from ‘The Notorious Mr Bout’
There’s a great documentary feature film on arms smuggler Viktor Bout at Sundance 2014 this week. I’m part of it, but don’t let that put you off – it’s by the team who made the award-winning Pussy Riot: A Punk Prayer last year. There’s more detail below, but in the meantime, here’s the…
Do you know these men? Andrew Lahde and Colonel Millard Peck
I’m posting this here in the hope that someone has information on a couple of cold trails. I’ve been looking for more than a year, but they’ve disappeared off the face of the Earth. So here goes: one last attempt to track these guys down before I press send. I’m desperately trying to find/contact vanished…
Comment: In praise of apathy: salesmen and survivors, and what two very different bomb sites can tell us about pre-Olympic London in 2012
Something I saw today got me thinking about just what it means to live in a city, and what I hate and love about it. I suspect that it’s got something to tell me about why I distrust the London 2012 cheerleading so much, but I’ll only know when this post is finished. Before I…
Analysis: Black PR, white noise: How grey goo is killing the news media (and the news media doesn’t seem to mind).
This is a post about a systemic failure in our media organisations when it comes to reporting, and it has nothing to do with Rupert Murdoch or plagiarism. It starts in Soho and ends in Syria. If you’re a journalist, you’ll probably know it already, so apologies – though a couple of events recently,…
Analysis: Death, dollars and déjà vu in famine-hit Somalia
Update, October 2011: This is the July 2011 post that spawned the recent CNN documentary. It appeared two weeks later in modified form on the Huffington Post. Famine declared by the UN in the Shabelle region of Somalia. Mogadishu in a state of “gun-blasted anarchy”. Aid floods in – but its effects are patchy.…
News: Outlaws Inc to be serialised in next month’s Men’s Journal
Men’s Journal, the top-selling quality US men’s lifestyle magazine from Wenner Media, is publishing a free 7,000-word extract from Matt’s latest book ‘Outlaws Inc’ – out at the end of August in the USA and Canada – in its next edition, onsale August. The magazine, part of Jan Wenner’s legendary Rolling Stone media empire, is…
Reviews: Outlaws Inc hits nerve in Dubai and the Gulf
With the trial of so-called Merchant of Death Viktor Bout (above, and profiled in Outlaws Inc) approaching, sensitivities around his erstwhile ops base in the UAE are high. So it’s been great to get backing from two of the Arabian Gulf’s main English-language publications. While Esquire’s Middle East edition ran a larger feature and interview…
Great early reviews for Outlaws Inc.!
The first (great) reviews are coming in for Outlaws Inc. Campaigning Times journalist Brian Johnson-Thomas says it’s “the ultimate proof that the truth is far stranger than fiction”, while Sean Rayment, Defence Correspondent of The Daily Telegraph and author of Bomb Hunters, this year’s hit non-fiction book about UXB disposal experts in Afghanistan, calls it…