Dragnet
This morning: Dragnet. 1979. “like being nutted by reality” according to Allan Jones in Melody Maker when it was released. It’s actually fantastic!
Read MoreApril, 2021
The Fall Weekend
Hereby it is a weekend of listening to The Fall. Commencing with Live at the Witch Trials. 1979.
Read MoreFarewell, Super League
Up super-early for no other reason that having labyrinthine dreams and a headache… so listened to latest New Statesman podcast where Stephen Bush and Ailbhe Rea discussed the role football plays in public discourse. I tend to avoid thinking about football but, as the podcast points out it plays a…
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“Honestly, I think I would know if there were aliens”
It’s a long time since I’ve read anything interesting about UFOs, but this article for NBC by Rizwan Virk, founder of Play Labs at MIT, seems to indicate that – while the area of ufology is generally mocked by scientists and big tech – there’s obviously something significant happening. Virk…
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Denial and Delusion of the Thatcher Years
As someone who grew up in Thatcher’s Britain, it’s hard not to see the parallels between how fragmented and bleak things seem now and how it was back then. I’m not the only one. Very good piece by Guardian columnist John Harris who notes how the visible decline of Britain…
Read MoreThe Patriarchs
Daily Mail comments section gives feedback to Simon Armitage’s elegy to Prince Phillip this morning. In the comments section the most recent from Tiggybeans exclaims: “A lovely tribute, full of meaning.” Winning2020 instead thinks that “The poem is as cold as the weather outside.” Most of the others – as…
Read MoreThink Tanks Ate My Brain!
Just looking at another educational think tank’s web site. What I can’t see is how the organisation gets funded. Doing even a cursory web search on some of the think tank’s members seems to indicate their members are more partisan than it claims. Lobbying for personal gain is one thing…
Read MoreBike
And… randomly Autechre’s _Bike_ just started playing. Suddenly uplifted!
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Some Thoughts About Caitlin R Kiernan’s Black Helicopters
Professor Zeh sits in his office in Heidelberg. It’s 1969. Rain falls outside and Zeh’s office window is nothing but a dark grey rectangle. He’s smudged the ink in his notebook, jotting down a thought about Bohr’s interpretation of measurement he had while staring at his reflection in a mirror…
Read MoreBlack Helicopters
I’m finding Kiernan’s *Black Helicopters* a pretty challenging read. Have read it through once and now listening to audiobook plus reading along. It’s mesmerising and wonderful. But tough going!
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