March 2011
1 post
Perils of pontificating without a structure: 90s...
In the last couple of weeks, I’ve come across two very different approaches to completing a retrospective about music in the 1990s. They clearly indicate why it’s a bad idea to half-ass the structure of a retrospective.
The first was a 10 part series on A.V. Club called “Whatever Happened to Alternative Nation?” It was published over a number of weeks, written by a single...
January 2011
5 posts
Once again, college is better
I don’t care about basketball as such. I’m not adamantly opposed to it - that would be odd - but rather indifferent. However, my older daughter has been playing on a girls team of a weekend, so I’ve been going to games and making enthusiastic noises (in lieu of my actual reaction to the thuggish prep school kids who compose most of the league).
Yesterday as a way of getting our...
problem SOTU?
Thanks to the vicissitudes of work (proposals FTMFW, and I’m taking a break so don’t judge, if you please), I was officially unable to watch tonight’s State of the Union address, as opposed to unofficially not bothering. Dim memory suggests that I must have watched a few over the years, but the only one that I can clearly remember is the one in which Bill Clinton used the phrase...
“boys only ever admit to liking pop music in retrospect”
– True words from Edwyn Collins. My failure to fess up need not be discussed further.
“The main ideals of the Goldilocks mindset are not universal truths, but rather a...”
– Frank Chimero, via 43 Folders twitter feed.
Talk about assurances that probably won't... →
The idea of Karren Brady offering assurances of support to Avram Grant boggle the mind. Given the less than subtle leaks about the offer to Martin O’Neill, her ongoing reputation as a “sacker,” and the fact that she seems to be too clever to be left holding the bag - witness the lack of charges on tax evasion at Birmingham City - well, if I were Avram Grant, I’d approach...
August 2010
2 posts
Creative Review - Mail Me Art exhibition: Medium... →
I rather like the fact that this is is all done without an overarching theme or aesthetic conceit. Plus, how can you go wrong sending things in envelopes with pigeons on them?
Arts funding cuts will bring down the curtain on... →
This is a pretty compelling argument that the theater subsidies in the UK pay for themselves in terms of content and also performers for that content in the for-profit theater sector… rather like basic versus applied research I suppose.
If the Tories want to cut funds, that’s fine (I don’t live there), but if they were really trying to apply market thinking, they’d do well...
October 2009
5 posts
My heart
These close games for SC are killing me. All those blood pressure tablets were for naught.
When Saturday Comes - The Half Decent Football... →
The joys of schadenfreude across national lines.
“Fairy tales don’t tell children that dragons exist. Children already know...”
– G.K. Chesterton
Feyenoord hope for a turnaround in fortunes,... →
They can wait in perpetuity as far as I’m concerned. Any group of fans that crack out the hissing-of-the-gas-chambers routine deserve whatever footballing misery they get.
Frank Lampard: Golden generation tag has been a... →
boo fucking hoo. Really, I mean it.