Recently updated blogs

I was in town for some shopping but it I couldn't resist visiting a pub which only opened yesterday, so I headed up Seel Street to 1936 Pub Co's newest outlet, St Peters Tavern:Wow! 1936 have outdone themselves with this one. The interior on three floors is stunning. Almost all fake, I think, except for the stained glass windows which look original. The usual stag's heads (Where do they get …

I have a new, open access article published in Finance & Society, on the legitimation crisis of contemporary wealth-based capitalism and the existential unease that results.

When I heard that Hitman 3 VR: Reloaded was coming out, I was genuinely excited. Hitman in 3 in VR? Sign me up for sure. After all, Hitman is known for its immersive environments and complex gameplay, so bringing it to virtual reality had all the potential to be a game-changer in the VR space… But it’s not that great unfortunately. First off, let’s talk about the visuals. If you’re …

Fig. 1: Elder female couple gaze out in Thelma and Louise (Ridley Scott, 1991, USA) This blog considers the psychological conundrum of ageing within the academic workplace, offering an autoethnographic approach, reflecting upon passing moments from film and TV, that are both treasured, and engrained in the author’s psyche. “Drive Louise! Drive! Drive the car!” Gena Davis shouts at Susan… Source

This is a guest blog for Silent London by Maria Wyke, professor of Latin at University College London. Worn out from watching Paul Mescal battle with CGI baboons, rhinos and sharks in the Roman arena? Or trying to avoid the Marvel-style struggle for the future of the Roman empire playing out in a cinema near you? Then you … Continue reading Beyond Gladiator: the ancient world on the silent screen …

Kingsley wasn’t above trying this sort of thing herself: in 1912, she wrote a funny article about her attempts to sell her play (it was “as long as Hamlet and just as exciting.”) She had no more success than aspiring film writers. One hundred and ten years ago this month, Grace Kingsley wrote two articles that demonstrated how eager people in Los Angeles were to break into the movie business—just …

taking advantage of today's gift of wild and wet weather, i head to oneroa beach for a walk whilst the car is having it's annual warrant of fitness check up in the village. revelling in the grey skies, rain and wild seas, i send a video message to a friend in the uk — because i'm thinking of her, and i'm also trying to entice her to visit someday.the perfect …

I’m working for a Government department again. A fairly classic brief: we‘re designing a replacement for a 25 year old service used by a relatively small number of people but it captures an important set of data from a specialist group of users.It is basically digital forms. The old one being impenetrable grey forms on small grey screens with cryptic acronyms and truncations on all the labels. It comes with …

still stronger claims of self-authority in OSI’s new AI “definition”

In this day and age, you would think that with a push of a button a book could be released simultaneously all over the world, in all formats. Annoyingly enough, we are not at that day and age. We’re still dealing with contracts and subsidiary rights, licenses, and a bunch of other things that would bore you witless, were I to attempt explaining—presuming I could explain in any remotely intelligible …

173 years ago today, a masterpiece of literary history saw the light of day: “Moby-Dick” by Herman Melville. A book we love and that takes us on an adventurous journey with Captain Ahab and the legendary white whale time and again. We love the symbolism and power of this story. “Moby-Dick” is much more than ...

“e cannot write e cannot tell memory and vocabulary not enough here neither dead nor alive before the king of the vast kingdom of grief. . .” As David Peace’s novel 1980 opens, it is early December 1980 and the voice of Yoko Ono can be heard on the car radio of Assistant Chief Constable Peter Hunter of the Greater Manchester police force: “The 1980s are still going to be …

Creative lives are just inputs and outputs. You listen, watch, read, experience – that’s the inputs. Then you write, record, shape, create – that’s the outputs. The problem of course is that there are gazillions – we might as well call it infinite amounts – of inputs: endless blogs to be perused, films to be watched, books to be read and techniques to be admired. And the outputs? Sometimes they …

Super Logo Design, edited by Taki Ono, is a two-volume set of paperbacks published in 2001 and 2002 by Graphic-sha in Japan. These spreads are from volume two, available to digitally borrow on archive.org. It gives an interesting look at video game logos (among others) designed in the 1990s and early 2000s, listing the designer, client, year of creation, and software used (mostly Illustrator and Photoshop, but also Strata Studio …

Idea to be interrogated: Selective ignorance might actually save your life. It is OK to care less. What matters most is to attend the things you can control/change/affect. The more you try to control the more miserable you become. What can I control? I can control me and me only. Which, OK yes, sure but: really think about that. Do I care enough about myself to actually focus my attention …