When did I last see The Big Parade? I can’t remember where or when? On a big screen, I think, and at least twenty years ago. My memory of it, apart from its huge emotional impact, chiefly centred on the soldiers marching slowly through woods in the face of gunfire. I saw the film againRead More
Author: Luke McKernan
The book I’m reading, the drink I’m drinking
I’ve had enough of these long, infrequent posts. I spend ages deliberating over what to write, then still longer putting off writing itself because it takes up so much time – and once I’ve started I can’t stop. Shorter, pithier, more frequent – that’s what’s required. In the interim, here’s a photo from today, takenRead More
Leaving Colindale
The national newspaper collection is on the move. Next month, the British Newspaper Library – part of the British Library – will be leaving Colindale, north London, its home since 1932. Countless researchers have made use of the Colindale reading rooms over the past eighty years, and it is held in great affection, but fewRead More
I remember # 6
157. I remember hearing a siren wailing at some point in the early ’80s and wondering if nuclear war had been declared 158. I remember Hiawatha 159. I remember Porky Prime Cut (the message cut into the grooves of many single and albums in the 70s and 80s) 160. I remember Pogle’s Wood and littleRead More
Self portrait
All the tired horses in the sun How’m I supposed to get any ridin’ done? Hmm I was brought up on Bob Dylan. My parents had ten records in their music collection (aside from children’s LPs). There were two ‘Classics for Pleasure’ albums, Joan Baez in Content Volume II, a Joan Baez EP featuring herRead More
Picturegoing
I’m happy to announce a new website that I’ve been working on for the past couple of months, Picturegoing. I say a couple of months, but this builds on research which I’ve done for some years now. Back in 2005 I was co-researcher on The London Project, a Birkbeck University of London project looking atRead More
News of the world
News is not an absolute. Though we talk about world news, what is news to one person is to necessarily news to another. News is a report of an event of specific interest to a particular audience. So it is that online news services such as Google News or Yahoo News offer means to tailorRead More
A day on Cybertron
Last Saturday I was on another planet, or so I expected to be. Specifically I was at a Transformers convention in Birmingham. Just to make things clear, I am not a fan of plastic robots that convert into cars, nor of the bombastic films that have been made about them. I do, however, have aRead More
I remember # 5 (London 2012 special)
120. I remember directions marked out in pink wherever you went. 121. I remember Nicola Adams’ smile. 122. I remember the radio-controlled cars which were used to retrieve javelins and shots. 123. I remember the Olympic posters designed by various celebrated artists, and how poor most of them were, showing how very little said artistsRead More
Watching you
We are planning some grand project at my work place, and part of the inevitable procedure is to find out what people think about the idea. So we get some marketing firm to track down different types of people who use our services, or who don’t use them but might do, and other such categories,Read More