Reviews and other ponderings
One of my favourite pieces of comic writing is not by a comic writer at all, but an explorer. Apsley Cherry-Garrard, the youngest to Captain Scott’s party, writes here about his delivery of penguin eggs to the Natural History Museum. It should be noted that he and two others, who later died with Scott, spent [...]
Rereading the posts I make on this blog, after a week or so, is an odd experience. It’s almost as if someone else has taken something I thought and put it into words, and often bad ones. It is increasingly obvious that it is hard to have a style of one’s own. It is impossible to [...]
I wonder if a period of plenty and ease was ever correctly identified, except in retrospect. We always think that times are tough, but are hopeful that they will improve. If they do not, and, instead, deteriorate, we are appalled, and declare the now-passed time a Golden Age. We thought we were working too hard [...]
After a late night conversation about the huge number of characters in Shakespeare’s history plays, a friend sent me a tube in the post, which ended up containing what you see in the attached video. What we found interesting was how many characters remain through several plays, even though their titles change over the course [...]
When I was 18, I had the very good fortune to find a job in a theatre in Manchester. The job was basic, but at that time, the late eighties, Manchester was the most glamourous and exciting city in the world. Far away, on another continent, I had spent hours reading about the exploits of [...]
Sometime, I catch myself thinking something, and wondering what I am basing my thinking on. This happens quite rarely, given that so little of what we think we know can actually be proven. We are all guilty of holding opinions, often unconsciously, with no basis in reality, but it’s always easier to spot other people [...]
…your brother and my sister no sooner met but they looked, no sooner looked but they loved, no sooner loved but they sighed, no sooner sighed but they asked one another the reason, no sooner knew the reason but they sought the remedy; and in these degrees have they made a pair of stairs to [...]
There is a little trend I have noticed in newspaper and magazine writing recently, which I find rather off-putting. It’s where the author invites me to be a member of their little gang, and I instinctively reject the invitation. The word used to achieve this effect, is ‘that’, or its plural, ‘those’. An example. Someone [...]
A while ago, while on my way to work, I saw a woman pulling out of her enormous, palatial home in a large SUV. She was stationary in the driveway, repeatedly clicking a remote control which was meant to automatically close her wrought-iron gates. But she couldn’t seem to get the angle right, because she [...]
Pro HDR is a great photo app for lowly iPhone 3GS users (such as I), who lack the iPhone 4′s built in HDR feature. You can use it instead of the camera app, especially where lighting conditions might result in a too dark or too light photo. You have to hold the phone steady for [...]