Christina Patterson

Christina Patterson joined The Independent in 2003 as deputy literary editor and is now a full-time writer and columnist. A former director of the Poetry Society, and literary programmer at the Southbank Centre, she writes on culture, politics, books, travel and the arts and does the weekly "big interview" for the Arts & Books section. Interviewees have included Martin Amis, Alastair Campbell, Werner Herzog, David Starkey and Bryn Terfel.

Christina Patterson: Art, money and a marriage made in hell

The market has survived. The Kapoors and the Quinns are flying out the door

Recently by Christina Patterson

Christina Patterson: Energy, drive, decisiveness – and knowledge of libel laws

Thursday, 15 October 2009

"The culture of our company has been built around the qualities of the markets in which we work. We encourage our people to be energetic; driven and decisive and pursuing opportunity; respectful both of the significance of what we do and of the individual needs and qualities of our customers and suppliers."

Christina Patterson: The night a thief stole more than just a handbag

Saturday, 10 October 2009

I’ve pressed more numbers, in more ‘menus’, than a code breaker at Bletchley

Christina Patterson: Let's preserve the dotty, dying don

Thursday, 8 October 2009

If I were rewriting Dante's Inferno, I'd ensure that the catalogue of punishments included a PhD. Perhaps for the bankers – the men in Armani, seeking instant fortunes from hot air – a seven-year sentence, in corduroys, in libraries, on semi-colons in Finnegans Wake. There'd be no Starbucks. No Blackberries. No shrieking or baying or bragging. Nothing except piles and piles of lit-crit, time stretching out to an invisible, distant horizon, and silence.

Christina Patterson: I've reached a tipping point with tipping

Thursday, 1 October 2009

It starts the minute you arrive at your hotel. The suitcase that you dragged for miles to the bus stop, and then up and down the stairs on the Tube, and then down endless corridors and broken travelators at the airport, and then to the information desk at the other end, and to the bus stop, or the train, or perhaps the taxi, is, the minute you arrive in reception, whisked away from you by a man in a uniform, who carries it (but it's got wheels!) to the lift and then a few yards to your room. He opens the door, waves at the room as if he had, like God, just that minute conjured it from the air, and pauses.

Christina Patterson: Let's ditch this gold-diggers' free-for-all

Thursday, 17 September 2009

I've always felt a bit sorry for Mrs Bennet. It was all very well for Mr Bennet to cast his eyes to heaven, and sigh and sneer over her fluttering, and her whittering, and her desperate, all-consuming, excruciating desire to get her daughters married off. But what was she meant to do? She had five daughters and no money. Their market value was waning by the day. And he wasn't offering any helpful solutions.

Christina Patterson: Society isn't broken, it's just become self-centred

Saturday, 12 September 2009

Was it inevitable, after 18 years of me, me, me, that we’d all bow to the new god, Choice?

Chrisitina Patterson: Lessons on drink and la dolce vita

Thursday, 10 September 2009

In my first week at university I discovered that I came from something called a "gin and jag belt". "Oehuuw!" said the pixie-booted 18-year-olds, in the protracted vowels of a Penelope-Keith-come-Abigail-pissed-at-her-party. "Guildford!" There weren't too many jags on our estate (we had a Morris Marina) and there wasn't much gin either. Once in a blue moon, my father would dig out a bottle of Blue Nun for guests, which he would serve by the half glass. The bottle would last all evening.