British youth culture at its finest [This website launched in 2009]
❚ 1983 – “Have you been to the cubism exhibition at the Tate?” David Hockney enthuses during a trip to London from his home in Los Angeles. “I’ve been seven times! Suddenly I see cubism differently, more clearly.” My interview … Continue reading →
❚ All you need to know about the New Romantics revolution of the 1980s is covered in each of these books which is definitive in its own way. . . * 78-87 LONDON YOUTH, by Derek Ridgers (Damiani, 2013) – … Continue reading →
❚ IMPOSSIBLE to imagine how many tears have been shed in the past three weeks since the violent murderous death of Finbar Sullivan on his 21st birthday while testing his new camera in broad daylight on grassy Primrose Hill. The … Continue reading →
MOLLY PARKIN 3 FEB 1932 – 5 JAN 2026 ❚ SO SAD TO HEAR OF MOLLY’S PASSING AGED 93. She was my first great mentor when I joined the avant-garde magazine Nova in my first professional job… and in 1973 … Continue reading →
❚ TRIBUTES HAVE POURED IN following the death of our greatest contemporary playwright Tom Stoppard, aged 88. I have been lucky enough to cross his path several times, notably when I invited him to the Telegraph’s annual Scientists Meet the … Continue reading →
❚ BEST NEWS OF THE WEEK is to hear of the return of a legendary restaurant… The place I grew up in when eating out was cheap and cheerful, and the one that confirmed my taste for classic British farmyard … Continue reading →
❚ DESPITE NOT BEING A FAN of Me-Me-Me George O’Dowd, I found the compelling new TV documentary Boy George & Culture Club an astonishing revelation on every level at its premiere this week in the Waterloo Imax cinema. The sheer … Continue reading →
❚ DURING THE SWINGING 80S two seasoned eye-witnesses watched Britain’s young ignite a glittering New Romantics revolution… As a Fleet Street journalist I explored their intriguing carnival of style-setting cults across Britain, Paris and New York, while straight-up photographer Derek … Continue reading →
De Finibus Bonorum et Malorum, Cicero: [Alas this sound recording no longer works] FRONT PAGE
[This post was among the first to be published at Shapersofthe80s in March 2009] PICTURE POST 1938-57 The pioneer of photo-reportage. At the height of its powers during the Second World War this was the most widely read periodical in … Continue reading →