Howard Swains - author - The Slovak Spectator

Howard Swains

Howard Swains is a freelance journalist based between London and New York. He is a freelance contributor and sub-editor at The Guardian and Observer, the former Deputy Sport Editor of Times Online, and is a former gambling columnist for The Times.He has written about film, travel, sport, technology and gambling for numerous publications and websites, including Wired.co.uk, The New York Sun, The New York Post and The Racing Post. He also wrote the 2008 edition of Spectacular Slovakia for the Slovak Spectator.He holds an MA in English from St Andrews University (1997) and an MS in journalism from Columbia Journalism School (2007).

List of author's articles

On the list: the delights and drawbacks of UNESCO inscription

Insightful information about UNESCO sites in Slovakia and the stories they tell.

Howard Swains

A family home of red rock

Between the 16th and mid-20th centuries, the renowned Pálffy family were fortunate enough to call the castle at Červený Kameň (Red Rock) home. But to anyone born outside an order of Hungarian noblemen, their humble abode will be seen as nothing short of a monumental palace, now one of the most imposing and best preserved castles in Slovakia.

Howard Swains

A pottery display with a craftsman of ÚĽUV, the Centre For Folk Art Production

Ancient crafts alive today

The area around Bratislava has become internationally known as the home of folk majolica, a particular style of ceramics produced since the 16th century, particularly centred on the towns of Pezinok and Modra. The craft was brought to the area by the Habans, a branch of Anabaptists, who fled persecution in Germany, Switzerland and the Netherlands to settle in western Slovakia. Even though the Habans moved on, their skills transferred to local artists, who have continued the production to this day.

Howard Swains

Ante up – poker gains popularity in Slovakia

OVER the past 10 years or so, the game of poker has become so popular that it can at times seem almost impossible to avoid. In the United States and the UK, the late-night television schedules frequently feature poker tournaments, and even the mainstream press routinely covers the game. Countries as diverse as Italy, Brazil, Australia and Taiwan are also hotbeds of poker action, with the traditional image of the game as a seedy pastime for gangsters long outdated.

Howard Swains

A vibrant book about nothingness

THE READER of the English edition of Julian Barnes's Nothing To Be Frightened Of is immediately presented with what seems to be a massive contradiction. Beneath an endorsement from The Daily Telegraph that this is Barnes's “funniest and frankest work to date”, a cover illustration depicts a cloaked skeleton visiting an unsuspecting gentleman and scaring him to death. Various other blurbs describe the book as a dissection of the “inevitability of death”, a “meditation on mortality and the fear of death”, “an extended reflection on the fear of death” and a “bible of elegant despair”. Funny? Are you sure?

Howard Swains

Iron Man starts to show his age

ANY self-respecting 10-year-old boy should quite rightly want to be either Batman or Spiderman, accepting dull periods as the weary billionaire socialite Bruce Wayne or the geeky Peter Parker as a fair trade for their thrilling moments of super-heroism. But if you canvassed those 10-year-olds’ fathers, the chances are they would want to be Tony Stark, aka Iron Man, the second episode of whose suave, high-octane adventures has recently landed on the big screen.

Howard Swains

Ishiguro's Nocturnes

TALK to anyone in the publishing industry and they’ll tell you about their frustration with short stories. Everyone wants to write them, it seems, but no one wants to read them and in these times of economic hardship, short story collections are a big no-no.

Howard Swains

Finding the obscure and unique in Slovakia

Every week in the New York Times, the “About New York” column introduces readers to an under-reported or unrepresented character, place, building or incident from arguably the most vibrant five boroughs in the United States. Since the column’s inception, the focus has been on the obscure and unique, those specific wonders living in New Yorkers’ midst, who richen the flavour of the city but who can pass by unnoticed. The column’s most celebrated writers have been those who relish the unknown and dive off the beaten track to find the special and the spectacular where it is least expected.

Howard Swains

Capitalism: A Love Story

Director: Michael Moore

Howard Swains

The latest outing from a smooth storyteller

BRITISH writer William Boyd is not one to hang around doing nothing. Since his first book in 1981, Boyd has published a further 11 novels, at least 12 screenplays, a handful of short story collections and numerous newspaper essays and articles. He was also the man behind one of modern literature’s most celebrated hoaxes, when his faux memoir of a fictional modern artist duped many who should have known better. Boyd is versatile and prolific, to say the least.

Howard Swains

The Hurt Locker

Director: Kathryn BigelowStarring: Jeremy Renner, Anthony Mackie, Brian Geraghty

Howard Swains

Wolfman remake lacks a real bite

The Wolfman

Howard Swains

A story from an 'unimpressive Bratislava'

THERE’s a clear promise of travel in Leif Davidsen's political thriller The Woman From Bratislava. “One of Denmark's top crime writers” trills the Sunday Times’ quote on the jacket, while the blurb on the back transports us to spring 1999 when “NATO is bombing Yugoslavia”. In the prologue we leave Copenhagen for Estonia, and the first lines proper read: “I first noticed the woman in Warsaw. She showed up again … in Prague.”

Howard Swains

Up In The Air

Director: Jason Reitman Starring: George Clooney, Vera Farmiga, Anna Kendrick “TO KNOW me is to fly with me,” says Ryan Bingham during an early monologue in Jason Reitman’s Up In The Air, recently landed in Bratislava. But in the soulless land of airline lounges, air miles programmes, hotel bathrobes and mini-bar miniatures, there’s not much to know about anyone — such is the point being made by a film that is part condemnation and part advertisement for the slick international brands of American Airlines, Hilton and George Clooney.

Howard Swains

The Little Stranger

THERE are only a handful of characters in Sarah Waters’ The Little Stranger, and none are more impressive, oppressive and depressing than Hundreds Hall, the decaying manor house at the story’s heart. The sprawling estates of the English countryside have long provided the backdrop for works in all fictional genres, but once the houses slip into disrepair and grandeur fades into neglect, ghosts tend to move in and imbue the buildings with lives of their own.

Howard Swains

Generation A

IN THE early 1990s, the Canadian novelist Douglas Coupland was among the first artistic figures to catch the whiff of teen spirit that would come to fuel the decade’s disaffected. His literary debut, Generation X, was sub-titled "Tales for an Accelerated Culture" and the book was a bible for the children of the baby boomers, vast swathes of innovative and intelligent youth, who were wasting their talents in dead end “McJobs” and struggling to make sense of a world that favoured blandness over invention. Coupland’s novel popularised the Generation X moniker and promoted him overnight to the role of spokesman for the slouching classes.

Howard Swains

Film review: Avatar

Avatar

Howard Swains

Invisible

NEAR the middle of the new Paul Auster novel, Invisible, a central character named Margot makes a seemingly innocuous observation. “Who knows what a person’s secret desires are?” she says. “Unless the person acts on them or talks about them, you don’t have a clue.”

Howard Swains

A review of Paranormal Activity and Zombieland

Fans and detractors of Paranormal Activity can at least agree on one point: this micro-budget, pseudo-realistic, amateur-hour horror film is a miracle of viral marketing. Set entirely in one house and featuring only four non-professional actors, the production cost a reported $15,000—about as much as most Hollywood efforts set aside for a day’s sushi. But after a low-key initial release, word spread across the internet—fuelled by chat-room gossip, “leaked” snippets and rumours of its supposed authenticity—and Paranormal Activity was let loose in 200 cinemas across the United States. It took $9.1 million in its first week and became the most profitable film in history. As the phenomenon now reaches Europe, this is the question that will haunt cinemagoers far more efficiently than the content of the film: have I been conned? Certainly there’s not much to the movie even to flesh out a review. A young woman named Katie (Katie Featherston) complains to her boyfriend that she is experiencing strange but intangible visitations during the night. Micah (Micah Stoat) is sceptical but believes enough to buy a video camera and wires it up at the foot of the bed. The amateur auteur also gets carried away sufficiently to record every other moment of their tedious lives, and what constitutes the finished film purports to be the couple’s unedited tapes, discovered by the police. That means time-stamped, wonkily-shot home video and inconsequential, improvised dialogue. Bring motion-sickness pills. And caffeine.

Howard Swains

The Glass Room

Howard Swains

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