A few things about the review section in this months mag which I have just got round to reading.

Andrew Harrisons review of Martin Amis' book about 9/11 and after, seemed to be very woolly minded indeed. Amis's comments, which were made in 2006 and not in the immediate aftermath of 9/11, regarding how the Islamic community should be tougher with its children,
were fairly infammatory given the wider context of the UK and the Iraq War. Trying to defend those comments by saying it was a "thought experiment" was just a lame pseudo-intellectual excuse. Thats not even to begin to discuss the implications of curtailing citizans liberties and rights in the UK, which Amis suggested.

There is a more wideranging debate about all this stuff -but Andrew doesn't seem to want to
go there - instead happier praising the "rock star swagger" of Amis' prose. The one point where Andrew is completely right, is in his analysis of the Blair worship piece - but hold on isn't Blair the man that took us into the quagmire of the Iraqi War? Dear old Martin can't seem to put the picture together.

For such an intelligent writer (Amis) to make such bone-headed and one-dimensional statements is utterly perplexing. And he should be called to task about it - which he was, digging himself an even bigger hole. Although he did get the cushy professor job whereas Terry Eagleton lost his....

But to Andrews mind there are people worse than writers who conduct public experiments on inflammatory subjects - thats the anti-racists who exist in the "mirror world" of racist witchhunting!! Who and what on earth is that? Maybe Andrew should write for Boris Johnsons' mayoral campaign, he doesn't like those pesky do-gooders either and needs some help with his use of language that possibly could be mis-interpreted.

And why oh why was Nick Caves new album only given one paragraph when you gave the man the front cover and long interview?? That's a bizarre editorial decision.