One of the special features of the British Library’s Breaking the News exhibition is a large-scale panorama, created by designers Northover&Brown. Objects and graphics have been placed into flowing pictures of networks, places and people, tracing the changing ways in which we have discovered the news over five centuries, from town squares to what ElonRead More
Two years I wrote about an exhibition of the remarkable infographics of W.E.B. Du Bois, one of the founders of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People, and said that I was working on an exhibition of infographics myself, due to be shown at the British Library in August 2020. Then fate intervened.Read More
In a time of conflict, sing the songs of the other side. I watched Solaris again the other night – the 1972 Soviet film, not its pale American remake. At the time of the crass, blind adventurism of the invasion of Ukraine, I felt the need to experience the finest of Russian culture. The filmRead More
Walking along some fellside path in the Lake District, grey skies and a gentle drizzle, suddenly I am able to fly upwards. Hovering high above the hills, fields and waters, I can see the lattice-work of tracks, paths and roads that intersect across the land. With this map-like view of the terrain I view acrossRead More
It’s curious how we seem to value the recordings of songs over the songs themselves. That is, in times past it was the song itself that mattered and the song that has survived. There might be a known composer, there might be a singer’s name attached to it on sheet music (“as sung by”), orRead More
Plant a pip, and you hope that it will grow. It will, in time, establish roots and shoot upwards, growing in depth while it reaches up to the light. It is how all stories must work. We begin at a point that is presented to us as the beginning, but which we soon learn isRead More
Let’s move on to the books read in 2021. Of these there were plenty – too many to remember, let alone list. So, as in previous such lists, I am restricting myself to one book per month, even though some months were more full of riches than others, meaning some fine works had to beRead More
Next in the reviews of 2021 comes images – personal images, that is. The usual mixture of nature composing itself to its best advantage, abstract art discovered in run-down places, and people arranging themselves as they will. For higher resolution versions click on the title links, which will take you to my Flickr pages. MyRead More
Up next in my review of the year is music. As with most years, I listened to a great deal: exploring the new; uncovering former favourites not heard in a long time to see if they stood up well; trying out the new recordings of established favourites, sometimes up to standard, sometimes needing more listensRead More
Here we are at the end of the year we thought would not be like the last one, only for it to be almost exactly like the last one – just with more traffic and not quite so such sunshine. Nevertheless, a year is a year, and it’s time to review from various perspectives, muchRead More