Look Again

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02/16/11--17:09: Pervasive Ideas (chan 3136779)

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 [...]


02/17/11--02:32: Manchester (chan 3136779)

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 [...]


02/18/11--13:24: Shakespeare’s History Plays: a family tree. (chan 3136779)

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 [...]


02/19/11--13:03: Golden Ages (chan 3136779)

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 [...]


02/20/11--15:07: Reading one’s own writing (chan 3136779)

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 [...]


05/02/11--14:39: Productivity (chan 3136779)

I wish I could touch-type. When I first started using a keyboard, it was with a ZX81, which had a smooth, plastic surface to type on, and each key needed a good hard push. I developed a way of typing pretty fast, and it has stayed with me. The problem is that now, as my [...]


07/06/11--14:48: Why Stewart Lee should stay away from Twitter (chan 3136779)

I have always been a huge fan of the stand-up comedian Stewart Lee, and watch everything he does. I recently read his superb book ‘How I Escaped My Certain Fate‘, and loved it. He is not to everyone’s taste: no matter. My devotion to his work is unshakeable. He recently announced, via a rather angry [...]


07/10/11--08:51: ‘The Talk Show’ Bingo (chan 3136779)

I have been listening to ‘The Talk Show’ a lot recently, featuring John Gruber and Dan Benjamin. I have begun to notice a certain pattern to the conversation, and thought others might like to join in on my weekly game of Bingo. (Update – fixed a couple of typos.)


09/15/11--12:10: Penguin’s Eggs (chan 3136779)

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 [...]


01/15/12--04:15: Strategery (chan 3136779)

Recently, I have discovered an iPad/iPhone game I greatly enjoy, called Strategery. You can get it here. In a nutshell, it’s a Risk-like strategy game, where each player gets armies based on the number of countries he or she controls. Online play is great fun, and it is possible to have multiple games in progress, [...]