Actress, writer and broadcaster Kathy Owen assesses the rising spectre of racism in Spain, recounting her own battles as well as those of the African Boat People, and the public slur meted out to Formula One’s indomitable Lewis Hamilton.

Spanish based journalist Kathy Owen analyses the semantics of media speak and choice of image, as evidenced by the The Economist January 12 cover about the Democratic Primaries: "Stacked on the cover were the top of the court. Republican John McCain was profiled on a King of Clubs, a smiling Hilary Clinton as the Queen of Diamonds, and Senator Barack Obama as one of the lowest court cards – the Jack of Hearts. Now I’m no gambler but I could have bet that I wasn’t the only one who’d noticed the ‘subtle’ message that was being transmitted here."

Correspondent Bhavna Purswani takes a stylised picnic in the Dunes of Dubai: As we were led into the open air arena of the Al Hadeera Restaurant, by a local man in traditional dress, I saw my partner’s face echoing my thoughts. After ninety minutes on the road, with nothing around us but desert, and mice with death wishes periodically streaking across the tar, this had better be good.

Lana Mullen visits Antony Gormley's Blind Light exhibition at the Hayward, to test and unravel the Gormley phenomenon - the ubiquity, the multiplicity, and the arcane artistic statements that both befuddle and intrigue: "Rather than struggling to find the hand of someone nearby, or to see something other than shades of haze, why not stop for a moment and absorb the ‘clarity’? Ask yourself ‘where am I?’ If you respond inside, you’re wrong. If you reply outside, you’re wrong yet again."

Anita Keymatlian explores the life and work of the music's inimitable Teedra Moses: "It is difficult to uncover an artist who has the ability to come into such a well-established industry and single-handedly redefine music by producing such a diverse, unique and innovative sound."

ISHMAEL FIIFI ANNOBIL takes a microscope to Britain: "Britain and the rest of the Western world have come under its spell. We are all delirious from its infusions, and we cannot budge lest we lose some important detail. But it is no realism, this animal. It is merely a sick joke gone too far, buoyed by our endemic illiteracy, which renders us incapable of higher sight and thought."

ISHMAEL FIIFI ANNOBIL takes a closer look at Ragi Omar, BBC Correspondent, and finds flaws in his new 'authoritative' aspirations and interpretative skills. But he concedes, "Ragi Omar started well. He was a surefooted acolyte, showing a beautiful passion for investigation and the interview."

Vanessa Annobil reflects on the Hip-Hop of yesteryear vis-a-vis the lack of conceptual and social fibre interface in today's output, not to mention the happy interface with commercialism...Hip-Pop?

If you strayed into Hyde Park’s famous Speakers Corner and had no knowledge of its history, you might mistake it for a mere religious parley suffused with jesters and cranks. Forgive me, but you’d be actually watching a sweet vestige of British democracy and its inherent checks and balances at work. It lacks perfection, its grates often, and it infuriates, but it still embraces all peoples and ideas.

Ishmael Fiifi Annobil assesses the pivotal role played by the African-American boxer in the welding as well as splintering of America's two main communities in the pre- and post-war years, and the major propaganda wars African-American athletes won for America, despite the dark politics they had to heave against. He also decries the provincial jingoism still going on in American and British sports journalism.

Ishmael Fiifi Annobil reviews Zimbabwean Tapfuma Gutsa's contemplative exhibition at the October Gallery, London: "I might ride that delirium till I could break the cipher, and then dare the heat to obstruct my flight into the ethereal light. And if I lived to tell the tale, I am sure I would be a Tapfuma Gutsa."

Previously published in 1995 under the title Cow and Man, Man and Mayhem, this article was the result of an extraordinary interview conducted by Ishmael Annobil and George Keane with the cutting-edge Yugoslav artist, Radovan Kraguly, at the bar of Chapter Arts Centre, Cardiff, Wales. This extraordinary exhibition ran simultaneously at Chapter Arts Centre and Weyside Gallery, Builth Wells.

(This article is the first in a series of articles culled from the defunct cult newspaper Circa21, Wales' first serious arts newspaper, founded and edited by Ishmael Fiifi Annobil, ably assisted and subsidised by founding section editors George Keane and Michael Bowden. It was refused funding by the Welsh Art Council - Wales has yet to come up with a credible replacement! )

Dupe, a one-man show by legendary American director, actor and tutor Roy Faudree, is the epitome post-modern theatre. This piece critiques its Cardiff showing, which epitomised Avant Garde theatre; what with the artist's ability to conduct real-time dialogue and theatrics with normal audio visual technology, breaking down every aspect of the dramatic idiom and stage protocol to establish an even deeper sense of awe and suspense. This review was published in the first issue of Circa21, July 1995.

(This is the second in a series of articles first published in Circa21)

Nick Bryan dissects The West Wing, the hugely successful drama series about the inner workings of the White House, which has always operated at the higher end of television drama.