Art – EXCUSES AND HALF TRUTHS

The Cut Season 2 Episode 10

+++BREAKING NEWS FROM THE ARTS DESK+++

As we hit the last lap on locking this week’s issue, news emerged regarding the graffitoe which appeared on the walls of Reading Gaol on Sunday evening. Following a week of fevered speculation, stencil-wrangler and prankster Banksy has confirmed they are to blame for the artwork. Many see the piece as a show of support from the influential street art collective for the ongoing campaign to turn the long-disused site into an arts hub. The references to Oscar Wilde’s stay are clear. We note with a smile that the work’s position, high up on a wall which is still government property, will dissuade the usual chancers, shysters and thieves which gather at the first sniff of easy profit from ‘buying’ it and denying access to a work of art which belongs to the people. As Reading locals and street art fans, we at The Cut are doubly delighted at this new addition to our already rich cultural heritage.

We now return you to our scheduled programming.

Now is the time. Here is the place. This is The Cut.

The Cut 🤺 Issue 26

Lockdown 2–Electric Boogaloo! Frankly at this point in proceedings hibernation feels like the best option. If you need us we’ll be in our cave.

However, The Cut continues, if in sliiiightly truncated form this week. Hey, look, some of us have lives too, yeah? We kid. Always lovely to see you. Enjoy the usual hunk of palaver.

Now is the time. Here is the place. This is The Cut.

The Cut 🔪Issue 24

It is a week when Phil Collins’ ex-wife barricaded herself in his mansion with armed guards at the door, a woodworking show featured a face-tatted Nazi sympathiser, and one-time Mayor of New York Rudy Giuliani was caught with his hands down his kecks in the presence of an actress in the new Borat movie. Frankly, we can’t compete with that. Come, hide under the covers with us and enjoy some writing that won’t make you feel like the abyss is staring into you.

Now is the time. Here is the place. This is The Cut.

The Cut 🪒 Issue 21

Michaelmas has come and gone. The nights are starting to draw in. We are heading into spooky season… like things weren’t freaky enough already. Oh well. Draw the curtains, pull up to a bottle and join us as we flag up the pings on our radar this week. We have a metal god, a robust response to some poorly-judged street art and a song that could well be the anthem of 2020.

Now is the time. Here is the place. This is The Cut.

The Cut – Issue 7

We’ve had better weeks. Reading, our home town, was subject to an event now described as terrorist action. Three people died as a result. We are horrified, but not terrorised. We stand with all our friends and neighbours in this oddball place we call home, and look forward to seeing everyone in Forbury Gardens very, very soon.

The Cut – Issue 6

Another week down. The shops reopened, but frankly we’re happy behind the walls of our compound, letting all the goodies we need come to us. Queueing, we have decided, is not our bag. We may never shop in the old-fashioned way again. Anyway. Let’s do this. Now is the time. Here is the place. This is The Cut.

Lockdown Lifestyle And Grooming

About eighteen months ago, I stopped washing my hair. OK, let’s walk that statement back slightly—I stopped using any sort of soap or shampoo. Instead, I made do with a daily swoosh under the shower, trusting the old saw about the natural oils in the scalp balancing things out.

Out Of The Depths

Between 1844 and 2013, HMP Reading was the involuntary home for thousands of people who had caused offence to the state. From its original aim as a new model prison, with design features considered progressive for the time, the building changed, grew and mutated. Over the decades it became shabby, gradually less fit for purpose. Finally, after service as a young offenders lock-up, it was closed three years ago.

And that would have been the end for this unlovely, haunted building, if not for the fact that it is world-famous under its original name. Or rather, because of one particular inmate. Between 1895 and 1897 Prisoner C.3.3 suffered, wrote movingly of his torments, and immortalised the building whose walls enclosed him.

We know the man as Oscar Wilde, and the building as Reading Gaol.

Continue reading Out Of The Depths

The A To Z Of SFF: H Is For Hard To Be A God

Over a decade in the making. Three hours long, black and white, an uncompromising political allegory and treatise on the dangers of anti-intellectualism.
Sounds like a laff riot, right? But Aleksei German’s Hard To Be A God has a lot to offer, if you’re prepared to put in the effort. Let Rob and Clive be your guides through a visit to Arkanar…

The A To Z Of SFF: W Is For We3

It’s been described as a mecha-suited Watership Down or The Incredible Journey on acid. But Grant Morrison and Frank Quitely’s We3 is a beast of a very different colour. It has its flaws, but the book is also a bold and brilliant example of proper comics storytelling.

Join Rob and Clive as they take a walk on the wild side…