Pinter in Poets' Corner ?

I note a recent exchange, related to the suggestion (impossible by custom, as it turns out) that Harold Pinter be commemorated in Poet's Corner. The suggestion is made by the Conservative MP Ed Vaizey on his blog, and subsequently objected to, by at least one newspaper letter-writer, on grounds of Pinter's expressed views on Christianity. (Times 8/1/09)

Art, culture and the credit crunch

I note a recent spate of articles dwelling on what effects the credit crunch might have on the arts, particularly in connection with the recent BBC adaptation of Little Dorrit. They are all interesting in their various ways for the views they take of the relation between art/culture and the economic 'base', as it were, as well as for their various takes on the virtuousness of thrift more generally. See:
(i) a Guardian review article by Colin Burrow, on the idea of indebtedness in literature from Milton to Martin Amis
(ii) George Walden in the TLS - After the credit crunch - the arts crunch ?.
(iii) A.S. Byatt on Little Dorrit, also in the Guardian.

Reassessing T.S. Eliot

I note an interesting piece on Eliot by Jeanette Winterson in the Guardian, connected with the current series of Eliot's plays at the Donmar Warehouse. See also a review of the series in the TLS, 10/12/2008, with some discussion of Murder in the Cathedral.