Paul Whitington

1 month ago | independent.ie | Paul Whitington

In the 1920s, Eileen Gray designed an elegant and understated home on the Riviera. Famed architect Le Corbusier later filled it with garish muralsIn the summer of 1938, while staying with his friend Jean Badovici in a seaside house built and designed by Eileen Gray, Le Corbusier began painting a series of murals on the whitewashed walls. They were large and abstract, bright and gaudy, and some depicted naked females clumsily entwined.

1 month ago | irishexaminer.com | Paul Whitington

To Avenge a Dead Glacier  Shane Tivenan  Lilliput Press,€15.95 In the title short story of Shane Tivenan’s debut collection, an Icelandic priest gives an angry eulogy for a fallen glacier. “We lack the word,” he says, “for ocean currents that forget how to flow. Forget how to do their job.

1 month ago | independent.ie | Paul Whitington

The schoolboy died in 2006, but is set to become the latest Catholic saintWhen you think of a saint, you probably imagine stained-glass images of 4th-century bearded ascetics who take flight, raise the dead, quench storms or repel tsunamis. You certainly do not think of website designers with Gucci tops and olive skin, curly hair and a winning smile.

1 month ago | irishexaminer.com | Paul Whitington

There Came A-Tapping  Andrea Carter  Constable, €15.99 In her Inishowen mysteries, Andrea Carter used a slow pace and Agatha Christie flourishes to investigate a series of polite murders in rural Donegal. Very elegant they were too, but in this, her first standalone novel, she moves closer to home. Ms Carter grew up in Ballyfin, Co Laois, and the Slieve Bloom mountains form an atmospheric backdrop to this eerie tale of trauma and absence.

2 months ago | independent.ie | Paul Whitington

An Aussie offshoot of a fiendishly clever Danish show, ‘MAFSAU’ is one of a number of international versions, but is without doubt the best. Good weather, sub-tropical settings and the terrifying candour of the locals combine to make it irresistibly compelling. I was recently hooked via a family member who has every contestant’s number and wags her finger at the television, berating them for their bad behaviour. She has plenty to give out about.