Clive James,
AMThe Order of Australia is an order of chivalry established on 14 February 1975 by Elizabeth II, Queen of Australia, "for the purpose of according recognition to Australian citizens and other persons for achievement or for meritorious service"...
(born 7 October 1939) is an Australian author, critic, broadcaster, poet and memoirist, best known for his autobiographical series
Unreliable Memoirs, for his chat shows and documentaries on British television and for his prolific journalism. He has lived and worked in the United Kingdom since the early 1960s.
Biography
Clive James was born
Vivian James in Kogarah, Sydney. He was allowed to change his name as a child because "after
Vivien LeighVivien Leigh, Lady Olivier was an English actress. She won the Best Actress Academy Award for her portrayal of Blanche DuBois in A Streetcar Named Desire , a role she also played on stage in London's West End, as well as for her portrayal of the southern belle Scarlett O'Hara, alongside Clark...
played
Scarlett O'HaraScarlett O' Hara is the protagonist in Margaret Mitchell's 1936 novel Gone with the Wind and in the later film of the same name...
the name became irrevocably a girl's name no matter how you spelled it".
His father was taken prisoner by the
JapaneseThe Empire of Japan is the name of the state of Japan that existed from the Meiji Restoration on 3 January 1868 to the enactment of the post-World War II Constitution of...
during
World War IIWorld War II, or the Second World War , was a global conflict lasting from 1939 to 1945, involving most of the world's nations—including all of the great powers—eventually forming two opposing military alliances: the Allies and the Axis...
. Although he survived the POW camp, he died when the
planeA fixed-wing aircraft is an aircraft capable of flight using wings that generate lift due to the vehicle's forward airspeed. Fixed-wing aircraft are distinct from rotary-wing aircraft in which wings rotate about a fixed mast and ornithopters in which lift is generated by flapping wings.A powered...
returning him to Australia crashed in
TaiwanTaiwan , also known, especially in the past, as Formosa , is the largest island of the same-named island group of East Asia in the western Pacific Ocean and located off the southeastern coast of mainland China. The island forms over 99% of the current territory of the Republic of China following...
; he was buried in Hong Kong. James, who was an only child, was brought up by his mother in the Sydney suburb of Kogarah.
In
Unreliable Memoirs, James says an
IQ testThe development of the Stanford–Binet Intelligence Scales initiated the modern field of intelligence testing and was one of the first examples of an adaptive test. The test originated in France, then was revised in the United States...
taken in childhood put his
IQAn intelligence quotient, or IQ, is a score derived from one of several different standardized tests designed to assess intelligence. When modern IQ tests are constructed, the mean score within an age group is set to 100 and the standard deviation to 15...
at 140. He was educated at
Sydney Technical High SchoolSydney Technical High School is an academically selective, state-funded high school for boys in Bexley, a southern suburb of Sydney, Australia. Founded in 1911 as part of Sydney Technical College, the school was one of the six original New South Wales selective schools...
(despite winning a
bursary awardA bursary is strictly an office for a bursar and his or her staff in a school or college.In modern English usage, the term has become synonymous with "bursary award", a monetary award made by an institution to an individual or a group to assist the development of their education.According to The...
to
Sydney Boys High SchoolSydney Boys High School is an academically selective public secondary school for boys, located in the City of Sydney, Sydney, New South Wales, Australia, with 1,180 students, from years 7 to 12...
) and the
University of SydneyThe University of Sydney is a public university located in Sydney, New South Wales. The main campus spreads across the suburbs of Camperdown and Darlington on the southwestern outskirts of the Sydney CBD. Founded in 1850, it is the oldest university in Australia and Oceania...
, where he studied Psychology and became associated with the
Sydney PushThe Sydney Push was a predominantly left-wing intellectual sub-culture in Sydney from the late 1940s to the early '70s. Well known associates of the Push include Jim Baker, John Flaus, Harry Hooton, Margaret Fink, Sasha Soldatow, Lex Banning, Eva Cox, Richard Appleton, Paddy McGuinness, David...
, a
libertarianLibertarianism, in the strictest sense, is the political philosophy that holds individual liberty as the basic moral principle of society. In the broadest sense, it is any political philosophy which approximates this view...
, intellectual subculture. At the university, he edited the student newspaper,
Honi SoitHoni Soit is the student newspaper of the University of Sydney, first published in 1929 and produced by an elected editorial team as part of the activities of the Students' Representative Council...
, and directed the annual Union Revue. After graduating, James worked for a year as an Assistant Editor for
The Sydney Morning HeraldThe Sydney Morning Herald is a daily broadsheet newspaper published by Fairfax Media in Sydney, Australia. Founded in 1831 as the Sydney Herald, the SMH is the oldest continuously published newspaper in Australia. The newspaper is published six days a week. The newspaper's Sunday counterpart, The...
.
In early 1962, James moved to England, where he made his home. During his first three years in London, he shared a flat with the Australian film director
Bruce BeresfordBruce Beresford is an Australian film director who has made more than 30 feature films over a 40-year career.-Early life:...
(disguised as Dave Dalziel in the first three volumes of James' memoirs), was a neighbour of Australian artist
Brett WhiteleyBrett Whiteley, AO was an Australian artist. He is represented in the collections of all the large Australian galleries, and was twice winner of the Archibald Prize...
, became acquainted with
Barry HumphriesJohn Barry Humphries, AO, CBE is an Australian comedian, satirist, dadaist, artist, author and character actor, best known for his on-stage and television alter egos Dame Edna Everage, a Melbourne housewife and "gigastar", and Sir Les Patterson, Australia's foul-mouthed cultural attaché to the...
(disguised as Bruce Jennings), and had a variety of occasionally disastrous short-term jobs (sheet metal worker, library assistant, photo archivist, market researcher).
James later gained a place at
Pembroke College, CambridgePembroke College is a constituent college of the University of Cambridge, England.The college has over seven hundred students and fellows, and is the third oldest college of the university. Physically, it is one of the university's larger colleges, with buildings from almost every century since its...
, to read
English literatureEnglish literature is the literature written in the English language, including literature composed in English by writers not necessarily from England; for example, Robert Burns was Scottish, James Joyce was Irish, Joseph Conrad was Polish, Dylan Thomas was Welsh, Edgar Allan Poe was American, J....
. Whilst there, he contributed to all the undergraduate periodicals, was a member and later President of the Cambridge Footlights, and appeared on
University ChallengeUniversity Challenge is a British quiz programme that has aired since 1962. The format is based on the American show College Bowl, which ran on NBC radio from 1953 to 1957, and on NBC television from 1959 to 1970....
as captain of the Pembroke team. During one summer vacation, he worked as a circus roustabout to save enough money to travel to Italy. His contemporaries at Cambridge included
Germaine GreerGermaine Greer is an Australian writer, academic, journalist and scholar of early modern English literature, widely regarded as one of the most significant feminist voices of the later 20th century....
(known as Romaine Rand in the first three volumes of his memoirs) and
Eric IdleEric Idle is an English comedian, actor, author, singer, writer, and comedic composer. He was as a member of the British comedy group Monty Python, a member of the The Rutles on Saturday Night Live and author of the play, Spamalot....
. Having, he claims, scrupulously avoided reading any of the course material (but having read widely otherwise in English and foreign literature), James graduated with a 2:1—better than he had expected—and began a Ph.D. thesis on
Percy Bysshe ShelleyPercy Bysshe Shelley was one of the major English Romantic poets and is critically regarded as among the finest lyric poets in the English language. Shelley was famous for his association with John Keats and Lord Byron...
.
Critic and essayist
James worked as a television critic for
The ObserverThe Observer is a British newspaper, published on Sundays. In the same place on the political spectrum as its daily sister paper The Guardian, which acquired it in 1993, it takes a liberal or social democratic line on most issues. It is the world's oldest Sunday newspaper.-Origins:The first issue,...
(1972-82). Selections from the column were published in three books—
Visions Before Midnight,
The Crystal BucketThe Crystal Bucket is the second selection of Clive James's television criticism for The Observer, for which the British Press Awards named him 'Critic of the Year' in 1981: "His contribution to the art and enjoyment of TV criticism over the past ten years has been immense...
and
Glued to the BoxGlued to the Box , is the third and final collection of the television criticism Clive James wrote for The Observer. It includes material from articles that run from 2 December 1979 to 28 March 1982. In the Introduction he writes that he had, "never thought of television criticism as a career...
—and finally in a compendium,
On Television.
He has written literary criticism extensively for newspapers, magazines and periodicals in Britain, Australia and America, including, among many others,
The Australian Book Review,
The MonthlyThe Monthly is an Australian national magazine of politics, society and the arts, which is published eleven times per year on a monthly basis except the December/January issue. Founded in 2005, it is published by Melbourne property developer Morry Schwartz...
,
The Atlantic MonthlyThe Atlantic is an American magazine founded in Boston, Massachusetts, in 1857. It was created as a literary and cultural commentary magazine. It quickly achieved a national reputation, which it held for more than a century. It was important for recognizing and publishing new writers and poets,...
, the
New York Review of Books,
The LiberalThe Liberal is a UK-based online magazine "dedicated to promoting liberalism around the world". The publication explores liberal attitudes to a range of cultural issues, and encourages a dialogue between liberal politics and the liberal arts...
and the
Times Literary Supplement.
John GrossJohn Gross FRSL was an eminent English author, anthologist, literary and theatrical critic. The Spectator magazine called Gross “the best-read man in Britain”, as did The Guardian...
included James's essay 'A Blizzard of Tiny Kisses' in the
Oxford Book of Essays (1992, 1999).
The Metropolitan Critic (1974), his first collection of literary criticism, was followed by
At the Pillars of Hercules (1979),
From the Land of Shadows (1982),
Snakecharmers in Texas (1988),
The Dreaming Swimmer (1992),
Even As We Speak (2004),
The Meaning of Recognition (2005) and
Cultural AmnesiaCultural Amnesia is a book of biographical essays by Clive James, first published in 2007. The U.K. title, published by MacMillan, is Cultural Amnesia: Notes in the Margin of My Time, while the U.S. title, published by W.W...
(2007), a collection of mini-intellectual biographies of over 100 significant figures in modern culture, history and politics. A defence of
humanismHumanism is an approach in study, philosophy, world view or practice that focuses on human values and concerns. In philosophy and social science, humanism is a perspective which affirms some notion of human nature, and is contrasted with anti-humanism....
,
liberal democracyLiberal democracy, also known as constitutional democracy, is a common form of representative democracy. According to the principles of liberal democracy, elections should be free and fair, and the political process should be competitive...
and
literary clarityObscurantism is the practice of deliberately preventing the facts or the full details of some matter from becoming known. There are two, common, historical and intellectual, denotations: 1) restricting knowledge—opposition to the spread of knowledge, a policy of withholding knowledge from the...
, the book was listed among the best of 2007 by
The Village VoiceThe Village Voice is a free weekly newspaper and news and features website in New York City that features investigative articles, analysis of current affairs and culture, arts and music coverage, and events listings for New York City...
.
Another volume of essays,
The Revolt of the Pendulum, was published in June 2009.
He has also published
Flying Visits, a collection of
travel writingTravel writing is a genre that has, as its focus, accounts of real or imaginary places. The genre encompasses a number of styles that may range from the documentary to the evocative, from literary to journalistic, and from the humorous to the serious....
for
The ObserverThe Observer is a British newspaper, published on Sundays. In the same place on the political spectrum as its daily sister paper The Guardian, which acquired it in 1993, it takes a liberal or social democratic line on most issues. It is the world's oldest Sunday newspaper.-Origins:The first issue,...
.
Poet and lyricist
James has published poetry in periodicals all over the English-speaking world. He has published several books of poetry, including
Poem of the Year (1983), a verse-diary,
Other Passports: poems 1958–1985, a first collection, and
The Book of My Enemy (2003), a volume that takes its title from James' poem,
The Book of My Enemy Has Been Remaindered.
He has published four
mock-heroicMock-heroic, mock-epic or heroi-comic works are typically satires or parodies that mock common Classical stereotypes of heroes and heroic literature...
poems:
The Fate of Felicity Fark in the Land of the Media: a moral poem (1975),
Peregrine Prykke's Pilgrimage Through the London Literary World (1976),
Britannia Bright's Bewilderment in the Wilderness of Westminster (1976) and
Charles Charming's Challenges on the Pathway to the Throne (1981).
During the seventies he also collaborated on six albums of songs with
Pete AtkinPete Atkin is a British singer-songwriter and radio producer notable for his 1970s musical collaborations with Clive James and for producing the BBC Radio 4 series This Sceptred Isle.-Early life:...
:
- Beware Of The Beautiful Stranger (1970),
- Driving Through Mythical America (1971),
- A King At Nightfall (1973),
- The Road Of Silk (1974),
- Secret Drinker (1974), and
- Live Libel (1975).
A revival of interest in the songs in the late 1990s, triggered largely by the creation by Steve Birkill of an Internet mailing list "Midnight Voices" in 1997, led to the reissue of the six albums on CD between 1997 and 2001, as well as live performances by the pair. A double-album of previously-unrecorded songs written in the seventies and entitled
The Lakeside Sessions: Volumes 1 and 2 was released in 2002 and "Winter Spring", an album of new material written by James and Atkin was released in 2003.
James acknowledged the importance of the "Midnight Voices" group in bringing to wider attention the lyric-writing aspect of his career. He wrote in November 1997 that, "one of the midnight voices of my own fate should be [that] the music of Pete Atkin continues to rank high among the blessings of my life, and on my behalf as well as his I bless you all for your attention".
Novelist and memoirist
In 1979 James published his first book of autobiography,
Unreliable Memoirs, which recounted his early life in Australia and extended to over a hundred reprintings. It was followed by four other volumes of autobiography:
Falling Towards England (1985), which covered his London years;
May Week Was in June (1990), which dealt with his time at
CambridgeThe city of Cambridge is a university town and the administrative centre of the county of Cambridgeshire, England. It lies in East Anglia about north of London. Cambridge is at the heart of the high-technology centre known as Silicon Fen – a play on Silicon Valley and the fens surrounding the...
;
North Face of Soho (2006), and
The Blaze of Obscurity (2009), concerning his subsequent career. An omnibus edition of the first three volumes was published under the generic title of
Always Unreliable.
James has also written four novels:
Brilliant Creatures (1983),
The Remake (1987),
Brrm! Brrm! (1991), published in the United States as
The Man from Japan, and
The Silver Castle (1996).
In 1999,
John GrossJohn Gross FRSL was an eminent English author, anthologist, literary and theatrical critic. The Spectator magazine called Gross “the best-read man in Britain”, as did The Guardian...
included an excerpt from
Unreliable Memoirs in
The New Oxford Book of English Prose.
John CareyJohn Carey is a British literary critic, and emeritus Merton Professor of English Literature at the University of Oxford. He was born in Barnes, London, and educated at Richmond and East Sheen Boys’ Grammar School, winning an Open Scholarship to St John's College, Oxford. He served in the East...
chose
Unreliable Memoirs as one of the fifty most enjoyable books of the twentieth century in his book
Pure Pleasure (2000).
Television
James developed his television career as a guest commentator on various shows, including as an occasional co-presenter with
Tony WilsonAnthony Howard Wilson, commonly known as Tony Wilson , was an English record label owner, radio presenter, TV show host, nightclub manager, impresario and journalist for Granada Television and the BBC....
on the first series of
So It Goes, the
Granada TelevisionGranada Television is the ITV contractor for North West England. Based in Manchester since its inception, it is the only surviving original ITA franchisee from 1954 and is ITV's most successful....
pop music show. On the show when the
Sex PistolsThe Sex Pistols were an English punk rock band that formed in London in 1975. They were responsible for initiating the punk movement in the United Kingdom and inspiring many later punk and alternative rock musicians...
made their TV debut, James commented: "During the recording, the task of keeping the little bastards under control was given to me. With the aid of a radio microphone, I was able to shout them down, but it was a near thing...they attacked everything around them and had difficulty in being polite even to each other."..
James subsequently hosted the
ITVITV is the major commercial public service TV network in the United Kingdom. Launched in 1955 under the auspices of the Independent Television Authority to provide competition to the BBC, it is also the oldest commercial network in the UK...
show
Clive James on Television, in which he showcased unusual or (often unintentionally) amusing television programmes from around the world, notably the Japanese TV show
Endurancewas a Japanese television show from the 1980s. It is not particularly well known or remembered in Japan, but it became famous in other countries, particularly Britain, due to its appearance on the British television programmes Clive James on Television, and subsequently Tarrant on TV under the name...
. After his defection to the
BBCThe British Broadcasting Corporation is a British public service broadcaster. Its headquarters is at Broadcasting House in the City of Westminster, London. It is the largest broadcaster in the world, with about 23,000 staff...
in 1989, he hosted a similarly-formatted programme called
Saturday Night Clive (1988–1990) which initially screened on Saturday evening, returning as
Saturday Night Clive on Sunday in its second series when it changed screening day and then
Sunday Night Clive in its third and final series. In 1995 he set up Watchmaker Productions to produce
The Clive James Show for ITV, and a subsequent series launched the British career of singer and comedienne Margarita Pracatan. James hosted one of the early chat shows on
Channel 4Channel 4 is a British public-service television broadcaster which began working on 2 November 1982. Although largely commercially self-funded, it is ultimately publicly owned; originally a subsidiary of the Independent Broadcasting Authority , the station is now owned and operated by the Channel...
and fronted the BBC's
Review of the Year programmes in the late 1980s (
Clive James on the '80s) and 1990s (
Clive James on the '90s), which formed part of the channel's New Year's Eve celebrations.
In the mid-1980s, James featured in a travel programme called
Clive James in... (beginning with
Clive James in Las Vegas) for LWT (now
ITVITV is the major commercial public service TV network in the United Kingdom. Launched in 1955 under the auspices of the Independent Television Authority to provide competition to the BBC, it is also the oldest commercial network in the UK...
) and later switched to
BBCThe British Broadcasting Corporation is a British public service broadcaster. Its headquarters is at Broadcasting House in the City of Westminster, London. It is the largest broadcaster in the world, with about 23,000 staff...
, where he continued producing travel programmes, this time called
Clive James' Postcard from... (beginning with
Clive James' Postcard from Miami) - these also eventually transferred to ITV. He was also one of the original team of presenters of the BBC's
The Late Show, hosting a round-table discussion on Friday nights.
His major documentary series
Fame in the 20th CenturyFame in the 20th Century was a 1993 BBC documentary television series and book by Clive James. The book and series examined the phenomenon fame and how it expanded to international mass media proportions throughout the 20th century. The 8 episodes were divided in roughly 8 decades, from the 1900s...
(1993) was broadcast in the United Kingdom by the
BBCThe British Broadcasting Corporation is a British public service broadcaster. Its headquarters is at Broadcasting House in the City of Westminster, London. It is the largest broadcaster in the world, with about 23,000 staff...
, in Australia by the
ABCThe Australian Broadcasting Corporation, commonly referred to as "the ABC" , is Australia's national public broadcaster...
and in the United States by the
PBSThe Public Broadcasting Service is an American non-profit public broadcasting television network with 354 member TV stations in the United States which hold collective ownership. Its headquarters is in Arlington, Virginia....
network. This series dealt with the concept of "fame" in the 20th century, following over a course of eight episodes (each one chronologically and roughly devoted to one decade of the century, from the 1900s to the 1980s) discussions about world famous people of the 20th century. Through the use of film footage, James presented a history of "fame" which explored its growth to today's global proportions. In his closing monologue he remarked, "Achievement without fame can be a rewarding life, while fame without achievement is no life at all."
James presented the 1982, 1984 and 1986 official
Formula OneFormula One, also known as Formula 1 or F1 and referred to officially as the FIA Formula One World Championship, is the highest class of single seater auto racing sanctioned by the Fédération Internationale de l'Automobile . The "formula" designation in the name refers to a set of rules with which...
season review videos. He also presented
The Clive James Formula 1 Show for
ITVITV is the major commercial public service TV network in the United Kingdom. Launched in 1955 under the auspices of the Independent Television Authority to provide competition to the BBC, it is also the oldest commercial network in the UK...
to coincide with their
Formula OneFormula One, also known as Formula 1 or F1 and referred to officially as the FIA Formula One World Championship, is the highest class of single seater auto racing sanctioned by the Fédération Internationale de l'Automobile . The "formula" designation in the name refers to a set of rules with which...
coverage in .
One of his most famous quotations concerning television is, "Anyone afraid of what he thinks television does to the world is probably just afraid of the world".
Radio
In 2007, James started presenting the
BBC Radio 4BBC Radio 4 is a British domestic radio station, operated and owned by the BBC, that broadcasts a wide variety of spoken-word programmes, including news, drama, comedy, science and history. It replaced the BBC Home Service in 1967. The station controller is currently Gwyneth Williams, and the...
show
A Point of View, with transcripts appearing in the "Magazine" section of
BBC News OnlineBBC News Online is the website of BBC News, the division of the BBC responsible for newsgathering and production. The website is the most popular news website in the United Kingdom and forms a major part of BBC Online ....
. In this show James discussed various issues with a slightly humorous slant, similar to a newspaper
op-edAn op-ed, abbreviated from opposite the editorial page , is a newspaper article that expresses the opinions of a named writer who is usually unaffiliated with the newspaper's editorial board...
. Topics covered included media portrayal of torture, young black role models and corporate
rebrandingRebranding is the creation of a new name, term, symbol, design, or a combination of them for an established brand with the intention of developing a differentiated position in the mind of stakeholders and competitors....
. Three of James's broadcasts in 2007 were shortlisted for the 2008
Orwell PrizeThe Orwell Prize used to be regarded as the pre-eminent British prize for political writing.Three prizes are awarded each year: one for a book, one for journalism and another for blogging...
.
In October 2009 James read a radio version of his book
The Blaze of Obscurity, on BBC Radio 4's
Book of the WeekBook of the Week is a BBC Radio 4 series broadcast daily on week days. Each week the selected book, always a non-fiction work, is read in five episodes; each fifteen-minute episode is broadcast in the morning and repeated overnight . The Act of Worship replaces the morning broadcast on...
programme.
In December 2009 James talked about the
P-51 MustangThe North American Aviation P-51 Mustang was an American long-range, single-seat fighter and fighter-bomber used during World War II, the Korean War and in several other conflicts...
and other American fighter aircraft of Word War II in
The Museum of Curiosity on BBC Radio 4.
In late 2009, James returned to presenting
A Point of View for
BBC Radio 4BBC Radio 4 is a British domestic radio station, operated and owned by the BBC, that broadcasts a wide variety of spoken-word programmes, including news, drama, comedy, science and history. It replaced the BBC Home Service in 1967. The station controller is currently Gwyneth Williams, and the...
with a series of thirteen talks:
- Sheer Poetry: What the Poet Laureateship
The Poet Laureate of the United Kingdom, also referred to as the Poet Laureate, is the Poet Laureate appointed by the monarch of the United Kingdom on the advice of the Prime Minister...
says about the British attitude to poetry.
- Expensive Mistakes: Reflection on the MP's expenses row.
- Feminism and Democracy: Examines the global responsibility of feminists
Feminism is a collection of movements aimed at defining, establishing, and defending equal political, economic, and social rights and equal opportunities for women. Its concepts overlap with those of women's rights...
in the west.
- Newsflash from the Far East: Observes that while democracy is the right system for governing a country, it's the wrong system for choosing a professor of poetry.
- The Golf Ball Potato Crisp: Criticises extreme reactions to those who are sceptical about man-made global warming.
- On Strike: Reflects on the postal workers' dispute and gives his personal view of the modern history of labour relations.
- High Road to Xanadu: Reflects on the seductive allure of illegal narcotics.
- The Man on the Fourth Plinth: The honouring of Battle of Britain
The Battle of Britain is the name given to the World War II air campaign waged by the German Air Force against the United Kingdom during the summer and autumn of 1940...
commander Sir Keith Park with a temporary statue on Trafalgar SquareTrafalgar Square is a public space and tourist attraction in central London, England, United Kingdom. At its centre is Nelson's Column, which is guarded by four lion statues at its base. There are a number of statues and sculptures in the square, with one plinth displaying changing pieces of...
's fourth plinth
- Blog du Jour: Reflects on the revelation of the identity of Belle du Jour
The Intimate Adventures of a London Call Girl are memoirs of a former London call girl written by Dr. Brooke Magnanti, under the pseudonym Belle de Jour....
, the author of The Intimate Adventures of a London Call GirlThe Intimate Adventures of a London Call Girl are memoirs of a former London call girl written by Dr. Brooke Magnanti, under the pseudonym Belle de Jour....
.
- Spirit of the Game: The spirit in which the game is played determines whether James likes or loathes the sport.
- Impact: Warns of the dangers that a new plan for calculating funding for British universities may pose to academic freedom.
- Hermie's Ghost: Reflection on the media coverage of man-made global warming and the need for minds to be open.
- Option Swamp: James vents his frustration at automated customer service systems.
He has posted
vlogVideo blogging, sometimes shortened to vlogging or vidding or vidblogging is a form of blogging for which the medium is video, and is a form of Web television. Entries often combine embedded video or a video link with supporting text, images, and other metadata. Entries can be recorded in one take...
conversations from his internet show
Talking in the Library, including conversations with
Ian McEwanIan Russell McEwan CBE, FRSA, FRSL is a British novelist and screenwriter, and one of Britain's most highly regarded writers. In 2008, The Times named him among their list of "The 50 greatest British writers since 1945"....
,
Cate BlanchettCatherine Élise "Cate" Blanchett is an Australian actress. She came to international attention for her role as Elizabeth I of England in the 1998 biopic film Elizabeth, for which she won British Academy of Film and Television Arts and Golden Globe Awards, and earned her first Academy Award...
,
Julian BarnesJulian Patrick Barnes is a contemporary English writer, and winner of the 2011 Man Booker Prize, for his book The Sense of an Ending...
,
Jonathan MillerSir Jonathan Wolfe Miller CBE is a British theatre and opera director, author, physician, television presenter, humorist and sculptor. Trained as a physician in the late 1950s, he first came to prominence in the 1960s with his role in the comedy revue Beyond the Fringe with fellow writers and...
and
Terry GilliamTerrence Vance "Terry" Gilliam is an American-born British screenwriter, film director, animator, actor and member of the Monty Python comedy troupe. Gilliam is also known for directing several films, including Brazil , The Adventures of Baron Munchausen , The Fisher King , and 12 Monkeys...
. In addition to the poetry and
proseProse is the most typical form of written language, applying ordinary grammatical structure and natural flow of speech rather than rhythmic structure...
of James himself, the site features the works of other literary figures such as
Les MurrayLeslie Allan Murray, AO , known as Les Murray, is an Australian poet, anthologist and critic. His career spans over forty years, and he has published nearly 30 volumes of poetry, as well as two verse novels and collections of his prose writings...
and
Michael FraynMichael J. Frayn is an English playwright and novelist. He is best known as the author of the farce Noises Off and the dramas Copenhagen and Democracy...
, as well as the works of painters, sculptors and photographers such as
John OlsenJohn Henry Olsen, AO, OBE is an Australian artist. Olsen's primary subject of work is landscape.-Biography:John Olsen was born in Newcastle on 21 January 1928 and moved to Bondi Beach with his family in 1935, which began his lifelong fascination with Sydney Harbour...
and
Jeffrey SmartJeffrey Smart , is an expatriate Australian painter, who is known for his modernist depictions of urban landscapes.His first goal was to become an architect; however, he went on to become an art teacher after studying at Adelaide Teacher's College and the South Australian School of Art and Crafts...
.
Theatre
In 2008 James performed in two self-titled shows at the
Edinburgh Comedy FestivalEdinburgh Comedy Festival is a collection of comedy shows at the Edinburgh Festival Fringe which runs each August.-Media coverage:In June 2008, there were many news stories and commentaries in the media about the launch of the Edinburgh Comedy Festival, both positive and negative.Much was reported...
:
Clive James in Conversation and
Clive James in the Evening. He took the latter show on a limited tour of the UK in 2009.
Awards
In 1992, he was made a Member of the
Order of AustraliaThe Order of Australia is an order of chivalry established on 14 February 1975 by Elizabeth II, Queen of Australia, "for the purpose of according recognition to Australian citizens and other persons for achievement or for meritorious service"...
and in 2003 he was awarded the
Philip Hodgins Memorial Medal for LiteraturePhilip Ian Hodgins was a prize-winning Australian poet whose work appeared in such major publications as The New Yorker. Peter Rose called him 'probably the most loved [Australian] poet of his generation', noting that 'his admirers ranged from... Alan Hollinghurst to Ron Barassi and Peter Porter...
. He has received honorary doctorates from the Universities of Sydney and the
East AngliaThe University of East Anglia is a public research university based in Norwich, United Kingdom. It was established in 1963, and is a founder-member of the 1994 Group of research-intensive universities.-History:...
. In April 2008, James was awarded a Special Award for Writing and Broadcasting by the judges of the
Orwell PrizeThe Orwell Prize used to be regarded as the pre-eminent British prize for political writing.Three prizes are awarded each year: one for a book, one for journalism and another for blogging...
.
He was elected a Fellow of the
Royal Society of LiteratureThe Royal Society of Literature is the "senior literary organisation in Britain". It was founded in 1820 by George IV, in order to "reward literary merit and excite literary talent". The Society's first president was Thomas Burgess, who later became the Bishop of Salisbury...
in 2010.
Personal life
James is married to Prue Shaw, an academic in modern languages specialising in Italian and medieval romance philology. The couple have two daughters,
ClaerwenClaerwen James is a British painter, the daughter of the writer Clive James and the scholar Prue Shaw.She studied zoology at Oxford. She then did postgraduate research on the molecular biology of programmed cell death in the Biochemistry of the Cell Nucleus Laboratory at the Imperial Cancer...
(a painter), and Lucinda (a civil servant). James divides his time between a converted warehouse flat in London and a house in Cambridge. He has a policy of not talking about his family publicly.
A friend of
Diana, Princess of WalesDiana, Princess of Wales was the first wife of Charles, Prince of Wales, whom she married on 29 July 1981, and an international charity and fundraising figure, as well as a preeminent celebrity of the late 20th century...
, upon her death James wrote a piece for
The New YorkerThe New Yorker is an American magazine of reportage, commentary, criticism, essays, fiction, satire, cartoons and poetry published by Condé Nast...
entitled "I Wish I'd Never Met Her", recording his overwhelming grief. Since then he has declined to comment upon their friendship.
While a detractor of communism and socialism for their tendency towards
totalitarianismTotalitarianism is a political system where the state recognizes no limits to its authority and strives to regulate every aspect of public and private life wherever feasible...
, James still identifies himself with the left, endorsing some of the features sometimes observed under socialism, such as a planned economy and state-owned media, and eschewing the free market and privatisation associated with capitalism. In a 2006 interview in
The Sunday Times, James states of himself: "I was brought up on the proletarian left, and I remain there. The fair go for the workers is fundamental, and I don't believe the free market has a mind".
In a speech given in 1991, he criticised privatisation: "The idea that Britain's broadcasting system—for all its drawbacks one of the country's greatest institutions—was bound to be improved by being subjected to the conditions of a free market: there was no difficulty in recognising that notion as politically illiterate. But for some reason people did have difficulty in realising that it was economically illiterate too".
Overall, James identifies as a liberal social democrat. He strongly supported the
2003 invasion of IraqThe 2003 invasion of Iraq , was the start of the conflict known as the Iraq War, or Operation Iraqi Freedom, in which a combined force of troops from the United States, the United Kingdom, Australia and Poland invaded Iraq and toppled the regime of Saddam Hussein in 21 days of major combat operations...
, saying in 2007 that "the war only lasted a few days" and that the continuing conflict in Iraq was "the Iraq peace." He has also written that it was "official policy to rape a woman in front of her family" during
Saddam HusseinSaddam Hussein Abd al-Majid al-Tikriti was the fifth President of Iraq, serving in this capacity from 16 July 1979 until 9 April 2003...
's regime and that women have enjoyed more rights since the invasion.
James has been noted for expressing views sympathetic to climate change skepticism.
James is currently a Patron of the
Burma Campaign UKBurma Campaign UK founded in 1991 is a London based Non Governmental Organisation that aims to achieve the 'restoration of human rights and democracy in Burma . BCUK campaigns on behalf of the Burmese pro-democracy movement and is the largest campaigning organisation for Burma in Europe...
an organisation that campaigns for human rights and democracy in Burma.
Describing religions as "advertising agencies for a product that doesn't exist," James is an atheist and sees this as the default, obvious position.
James is able to read, with varying fluency, French, German, Italian, Spanish, Russian and Japanese. A
tangoTango dance originated in the area of the Rio de la Plata , and spread to the rest of the world soon after....
enthusiast, he has traveled to
Buenos AiresBuenos Aires is the capital and largest city of Argentina, and the second-largest metropolitan area in South America, after São Paulo. It is located on the western shore of the estuary of the Río de la Plata, on the southeastern coast of the South American continent...
for dance lessons and has a dance floor in his house which allows him to practise.
A former heavy drinker and smoker, who recorded in
North Face of Soho his habit of filling a
hubcapA hubcap, wheel cover or wheel trim is a decorative disk on an automobile wheel that covers at least a central portion of the wheel. Cars with stamped steel wheels often use a full wheel cover that conceals the entire wheel. Cars with alloy wheels or styled steel wheels generally use smaller...
ashtray daily, James now drinks only socially and stopped smoking in 2005. He admitted smoking 80 cigarettes a day for a number of years.
In April 2011, after media speculation that he had suffered kidney failure, James confirmed that he was suffering from B-cell chronic lymphocytic leukemia, and had been under treatment for 15 months at
Addenbrooke's HospitalAddenbrooke's Hospital is an internationally renowned teaching hospital in Cambridge, England, with strong links to the University of Cambridge. It was founded in 1766 on Trumpington Street with £4,500 from the will of Dr John Addenbrooke, a fellow of St Catharine's College...
.
See also
- Peter Porter (poet)
Peter Neville Frederick Porter, OAM was a British-based Australian poet.-Life:Porter was born in Brisbane, Australia, in 1929. His mother, Marion, died of a burst gall-bladder in 1938. He attended the Church of England Grammar School and left school at 18, and went to work as a trainee journalist...
, friend, and a regular partner in discussions on radio
- Edward Pygge
Edward Pygge was a pseudonym used by Ian Hamilton, John Fuller, Clive James, Russell Davies and Julian Barnes.Hamilton invented the name, and he and James used it...
, a pseudonym used by James
External links
- The Clive James Show Clive James recorded these video interviews with artists, writers, filmmakers and actors in his London home.
- Clive James at the Internet Movie Database
Internet Movie Database is an online database of information related to movies, television shows, actors, production crew personnel, video games and fictional characters featured in visual entertainment media. It is one of the most popular online entertainment destinations, with over 100 million...
- Interfacing With Clive James by Brendan Bernhard, New York Sun
The New York Sun was a weekday daily newspaper published in New York City from 2002 to 2008. When it debuted on April 16, 2002, adopting the name, motto, and masthead of an otherwise unrelated earlier New York paper, The Sun , it became the first general-interest broadsheet newspaper to be started...
, 18 January 2006
- Clive James at Edinburgh Comedy Festival
- Interview, Leicester Mercury
- Audio: Clive James in conversation on the BBC World Service discussion programme The Forum
The Forum is the BBC World Service's flagship discussion programme. It brings together prominent thinkers from different disciplines and different parts of the world to try and create stimulating discussion, informed by highly distinct academic, artistic and cultural backgrounds.-Format:Each...
- Clive James Interviewed by Alyssa McDonald on New Statesman.
- Freedom Wears a Crown: Clive James, Australians for Constitutional Monarchy
Australians for Constitutional Monarchy is a group that aims to preserve Australia's current constitutional monarchy, with Elizabeth II as Queen of Australia...
, 28 August 2007
- James Saves the Queen The Age
The Age is a daily broadsheet newspaper, which has been published in Melbourne, Australia since 1854. Owned and published by Fairfax Media, The Age primarily serves Victoria, but is also available for purchase in Tasmania, the Australian Capital Territory and border regions of South Australia and...
, 25 August 2007