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I’ve written a few essayists on the question of reality and identity posed by the artificial worlds developed by arcade and internet programmers. If we enter these worlds in avatar form (constructed selves built to our individual specifications of desire and need) are we experiencing and learning (or not) in the same way that would… Know More
We are apparently nearer to a CCTV camera than we are to a rat in the sense that CCTV watches us more of the time than rats do – and make no mistake, those rodent eyes bore into you wherever you go. And as if this surveillance was not enough, some huge proportion of us… Know More
As I wrote, probably longwindedly, in an earlier blog, there should be no blurring of state affairs and religious dogma. It doesn’t matter whether it is American fundamentalist Christians or Mormons, Islamists from wherever, the Vatican’s long nose in South America, Zionism or any as yet unknown future attempt to pervert the course of justice… Know More
It is an anomaly as painful as it is real. Political leaders do not represent the cream of generations. They are rarely credible enough for their nations to feel even minimal respect. In most cases they would not rise to the top of a multinational company or professions such as medicine or philosophy or astro-physics.… Know More
Having had a life spent in both the north and the south of England (and with a family in Scotland) and, latterly, living in East Anglia and Surrey but working in the north (Manchester, Sheffield etc) it has been borne home to me that there IS a divide in the country. When, finally, I come… Know More
I read Cormac McCarthy’s book of the same name, a month or two back, saw the Coen Brothers film yesterday and watched the Newsnight critics half-dismiss it the same evening. There was some praise but, in the main, they felt it was over-hyped. One found the psychopath, Chigurh, robotic, a mechanical killer and the whole… Know More
I saw Ang Lee’s latest film at the weekend. I had the same reaction to it as I did to Brokeback Mountain. A long, very stylish but somewhat vacuous film which depended on a single taboo to keep the audiences filing in. In his cowboy predecessor it was, of course, the love that could not… Know More
I met a bloke once who got irate with me when I said all private schools should be abolished. He explained that he was (relatively) poor because he was sending all three of his children to private school, just like his parents did with him and his sister. There was no way he would entertain… Know More
The time is back with us when people scratch their heads and wonder why the not very great and not very good are on the Queen’s Honours list. Given my republican tendencies (well, leanings that have tipped me over into a horizontal defiance) it always surprises me when people conflate the need for royalty with… Know More
Long in the tooth as I am – the first record I owned was a 78, Rock Around the Clock by Bill Haley, the other side being Thirteen Women and Only One Man in Town – the various incidents of BBC intervention on the part of a minority (or majority) have always stood out as… Know More