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Simon Port

@SimonPort

I work in London as a web editor. I read books, go to exhibitions and out into the country for long walks.

 London, UK
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Joined February 2009
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Notes on Hokusai: Thirty-six Views of Mount Fuji @ Dulwich Picture Gallery - astrofella.wordpress.com/202…
Hokusai: Thirty-six Views of Mount Fuji @ Dulwich Picture Gallery

Hokusai: Thirty-six Views of Mount Fuji @ Dulwich Picture Gallery

Dulwich Picture Gallery (DPG) is currently hosting an outstanding exhibition which brings together the complete set of Thirty-six Views of Mount Fuji by Katsushika Hokusai, Japan’s most celebrated …

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Notes on J.G. Ballard's last novel, 2006's Kingdom Come - astrofella.wordpress.com/202…

Kingdom Come by J.G. Ballard (2006)

Something had gone seriously wrong in the Thames Valley… This is a hugely enjoyable book, florid, extreme, and very entertaining. I put off reading Ballard’s last two novels (this and &…

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Notes on John Crowley's 1976 sci fi novel 'Beasts' - astrofella.wordpress.com/202…
Beasts by John Crowley (1976)

Beasts by John Crowley (1976)

‘It’s only humans who talk all the time,’ Loren said, ‘Just to hear talk. Maybe the leos don’t need to.’ (Beasts, page 130) I’m old enough to remember the …

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Notes on Larry Niven's 1970 sci fi novel 'Ringworld' - astrofella.wordpress.com/202…
Ringworld by Larry Niven (1970)

Ringworld by Larry Niven (1970)

Ringworld is, as the name suggests, a novel about a vast metallic ring, some 186 million miles in diameter, surrounding a star much like our own, the floor of which is a million miles across. It is…

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Notes on Ray Bradbury's vividly over-written novel 'Something Wicked This Way Comes' - astrofella.wordpress.com/202…
Something Wicked This Way Comes by Ray Bradbury (1962)

Something Wicked This Way Comes by Ray Bradbury (1962)

There, on the world’s rim, the lovely snail-gleam of the railway tracks ran, flinging wild gesticulations of lemon or cherry-coloured semaphore to the stars. There, on the precipice of earth,…

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Notes on A Canticle for Leibowitz by Walter M. Miller - astrofella.wordpress.com/202…
A Canticle for Leibowitz by Walter M. Miller (1959)

A Canticle for Leibowitz by Walter M. Miller (1959)

‘How can a great and wise civilisation have destroyed itself so completely?’ ‘Perhaps,’ said Apollo, ‘by being materially great and materially wise and nothing else.&#…

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Notes on Yinka Shonibare and Thomas Gainsborough: A Conversation @ the National Gallery - astrofella.wordpress.com/202…
Yinka Shonibare and Thomas Gainsborough: A Conversation @ the National Gallery

Yinka Shonibare and Thomas Gainsborough: A Conversation @ the National Gallery

The National Gallery normally uses Room 1, the HJ Hyams room, at the top of the main stairs on the left, to display a key work by a famous artist, surrounded by other, related works, which put it i…

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Notes on Renoir and Love @ the National Gallery - astrofella.wordpress.com/202…
Renoir and Love @ the National Gallery

Renoir and Love @ the National Gallery

With 45 works, the National Gallery’s new exhibition, ‘Renoir and Love’, is the most significant exhibition of the French Impressionist’s work in the UK for 20 years. It’s a…

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Notes on Imperium by Ryszard Kapuściński - astrofella.wordpress.com/202…
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Lit of Russia reviews - astrofella.wordpress.com/202…
Russia reviews

Russia reviews

This isn’t a reading list, just all the reviews I’ve written of books or art exhibitions related to Russia, gathered in one place. History Pre-revolution Victoria’s Wars by Saul David (…

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Notes on former British ambassador Rodric Braithwaite's recent history of Russia, 'Russia: Myths and Realities' - astrofella.wordpress.com/202…
Russia: Myths and Realities by Rodric Braithwaite (2022)

Russia: Myths and Realities by Rodric Braithwaite (2022)

Russia is a country with an unpredictable past. (Russian saying, quoted page 1) May God preserve us from the Russian mob, senseless and merciless. (hoary old quote from Russia’s greatest poet…

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Notes on 'Putin’s Wars: from Chechnya to Ukraine' by Mark Galeotti - astrofella.wordpress.com/202…
Putin’s Wars: from Chechnya to Ukraine by Mark Galeotti (2022)

Putin’s Wars: from Chechnya to Ukraine by Mark Galeotti (2022)

This is a very military history. Seeing as it also covers the decade before Vladimir Putin came to power, and that it is very focused on the minutiae of the Russian Army, Navy and Air Force, as wel…

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Thoughts on Vladimir Putin's complaints about western hypocrisy - astrofella.wordpress.com/202…
Vladimir Putin and western hypocrisy

Vladimir Putin and western hypocrisy

Reading the final chapters of Orlando Figes’ excellent and highly readable history of Russia, about the rise of Vladimir Putin and the lead-up to the war with Ukraine, I found myself growing …

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Notes on Robert Ryman: The Real Thing at the Barbican - astrofella.wordpress.com/202…
Robert Ryman: The Real Thing @ the Barbican

Robert Ryman: The Real Thing @ the Barbican

It’s ironic to be writing an online review of American painter Robert Ryman, complete with photos of his paintings, because Ryman more than any other painter, made a fetish, made his entire c…

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Notes on the exhibition 'Beauty and Destruction: Wartime London in Art' @ Imperial War Museum London - astrofella.wordpress.com/202…
Beauty and Destruction: Wartime London in Art @ Imperial War Museum London

Beauty and Destruction: Wartime London in Art @ Imperial War Museum London

‘The spire was alight halfway up the top and sending out showers and sparks – an odd and rather beautiful spectacle’ (Cecil King, Chairman of the Daily Mirror, describing the church of St Cle…

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Notes on the chapters of Orlando Figes' History of Russia which describe the rise of Vladimir Putin - astrofella.wordpress.com/202…
The Story of Russia by Orlando Figes 4: Putin

The Story of Russia by Orlando Figes 4: Putin

These are my notes on the final chapters of Orlando Figes’ immensely readable ‘History of Russia’. I’m focusing on the rise of Vladimir Putin. Repeating patterns in Russian …

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Notes on the rise of Stalin chapter from The Story of Russia by Orlando Figes - astrofella.wordpress.com/202…
The Story of Russia by Orlando Figes 3: the rise of Stalin

The Story of Russia by Orlando Figes 3: the rise of Stalin

These are my notes on chapter 9 of Orlando Figes’ immensely readable History of Russia. The previous chapter dealt with the revolution and the Bolshevik victory in the Russian civil wars. Thi…

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Notes on the Peter the Great chapter of Orlando Figes' history of Russia - astrofella.wordpress.com/202…

The Story of Russia by Orlando Figes 2: Peter the Great (2023)

Peter I, known as ‘the Great’, was the tsar of all Russia from 1682 to 1721, and the first emperor of Russia from 1721 until his death in 1725. This blog post consists of notes on the P…

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Notes on The Story of Russia by Orlando Figes - astrofella.wordpress.com/202…

The Story of Russia by Orlando Figes: 1 (2023)

In Soviet times, when Communism was its certain destiny and history was adjusted to reflect that end, there was a joke, which perhaps Orwell had in mind: ‘Russia is a country with a certain f…

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Notes on Arkady and Boris Strugatsky's 1989 sci-fi novel, 'The Doomed City' - astrofella.wordpress.com/202…
The Doomed City by Arkady and Boris Strugatsky (1972)

The Doomed City by Arkady and Boris Strugatsky (1972)

‘The experiment is the experiment.’ (The unanswerable reason everyone gives to justify crappy life in the Doomed City) Afterwords The decision by Gollancz SF Masterworks to include the …

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