Martin Amis and Kate Bush: This Blessed Plot, This Earth, This Realm, Etc.

“Conspicuous persons, in my motherland, are most seriously advised to lead a private life denuded of all color and complication. They should also, if they are prudent, have as little as possible to do with America — seen as the world HQ of arrogance and glitz. When I and my wife, who is a New Yorker, entrained the epic project of moving house, from Camden Town in London to Cobble Hill in Brooklyn, I took every public opportunity to make it clear that our reasons for doing so were exclusively personal and familial, and had nothing to do with any supposed dissatisfaction with England or the English people (whom, as I truthfully stressed, I have always admired for their tolerance, generosity, and wit).”
 — Martin Amis writes in The New Republic

about relocating from Britain to the States. Meanwhile, Kate Bush is reportedly going to perform at the closing ceremony of the London Olympics on Sunday. Kim Gavin, the artistic director of the ceremony, has said that it will be “an elegant mash-up,” wherein the London Symphony Orchestra will play along with rock and pop stars. Besides Bush, brace yourself for seeing George Michael, The Who (sigh), Adele, and the reunited Spice Girls rapping the lyrics to “We Will Rock You” with the three surviving members of Queen.