One of the surer signs of advancing age is that you find yourself saying things you remember your parents saying. I’ve long been detached from the pop music scene, but yesterday marked a new level of dissociation. In the never-ending fight against flab, I went to the gym. There is always something blaring out of… Continue reading You call that music?
Guardian Unlimited Books | News | Author John Fowles dies aged 79 I was sad to read of the death of Fowles. The French Lieutenant’s Woman will go down as one of the most engaging postwar British novels, notable especially for a postmodern twist: alternative endings, presented by an intrusive narrator. That novel is a… Continue reading John Fowles
Literature-Map – The tourist map of literatureThis is an interesting concept. Key in a writer’s name and watch the map develop. An interesting way of finding new authors similar to ones you already like, methinks.
BBC NEWS | Technology | Microsoft scans British Library Reading stufff like this makes you wonder how long the printed book has got left. But the book has a great resilience, and I can’t imagine a time when it would be more pleasant to sit under a tree on a summer’s day with a hand… Continue reading End of the book?
BBC NEWS | Politics | Blunkett resigns from the CabinetBlimey! Cabinet minister does honourable thing shock horror…
BBC NEWS | England | Lancashire | Jail for eBay phishing fraudster A long time ago, in another lifetime, I taught this man. The last thing I recall him saying to me was that he was going to be famous one day. Well, he made it.
Weekly book reviews and literary criticism from the Times Literary SupplementThe last time I mentioned Theodore Dalrymple in this blog, I received an angry comment from a reader in which Dalrymple was labelled a fascist. I replied, mildly, that although I could see that Dalrymple was certainly conservative (and maybe Conservative) that didn’t mean he… Continue reading The English Disease
BBC NEWS | Entertainment | Arts | Famous portrait ‘not Shakespeare’This is hardly a shock. Actually, if you google for the Grafton portrait, the first hit is the Norton site claiming it’s Marlowe. This is another example of the way that Shakespeare gets romanticised. We seem to want to possess him, and an authentic portrait… Continue reading Famous portrait ‘not Shakespeare’
…because it’s changing the world aparently, according to this article on the new Flock browser. I just liked the picture.
I’ve reluctantly turned this on, as I keep getting comment spam from brainless morons in Coleslaw Arizona…