There has probably been no more romantic human dream than the wish to fly. To defy gravity is to break through the bounds that tie we humans down. It is death-defying, an expression of immortality. Anyone who gets on a plane today and does not think – irrespective of what knowledge of aeronautical physics theyRead More
I was in the south-west of Ireland recently, on business matters but with a couple of days extra in which to explore. And so I went to Kinsale. It’s a small town, not far from Cork, located at a river mouth feeding out into the sea, its harbour facing a long cove, beyond which liesRead More
It’s sad to be noting the death of Christine Whittaker, who for many was the leading film researcher from the great age of film research. If you saw anything of history-based television programmes in the UK from the 1970s to the end of the 90s, then you will have seen her work. She is particularlyRead More
Of all the ephemeral objects we build for ourselves in the digital world, among the most precious and at the greatest risk of disappearing are databases. Databases are organised and queryable collections of data. The larger ones, along with their cousin the content management system, govern our world and manage who we are, since theirRead More
If I’m asked what my eight desert island discs would be – and to date I have to admit the question has yet to be asked – then six of the choices are always changing, but two remain fixed. One is Booker T and the MGs’ ‘Time is Tight’ (which I’m going to make theRead More
David Bowie? I never cared that much for him. Some catchy songs, but he wrote about aliens and space travel. How many songs has Bob Dylan – as a useful measure of quality – written about aliens or space travel? Zero. I rest my case. And Lemmy? One hell of a guy, clearly, but reallyRead More
The first person of whose death I became aware was Pete Duel. He was an American actor, star of the popular television series Alias Smith and Jones, which followed the adventures of two outlaws in imitation of the film Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid. Duel committed suicide on the last day of 1971, andRead More
As part of my Picturegoing survey of eyewitness accounts of going to see pictures, I have been reproducing what is among the best pieces of sustained writing on the process of cinemagoing, the ‘Continuous Performance’ essays written by Dorothy Richardson for the film journal Close Up. Dorothy Richardson (1873-1957) was a British novelist, a pioneerRead More
It may be hard to say for certain, but I don’t know that there has ever been a better title for a book than Too Naked for the Nazis. It’s the title of a biography by Alan Stafford of the legendary variety trio Wilson, Keppel and Betty, and derives from an apparently genuine reaction byRead More
Could there be a better idea for a website than Six Degrees of Francis Bacon? Launched in beta form this week, the site is designed to demonstrate the social network of Britain over the period 1500-1700. Created by data miners and digital humanities scholars at Carnegie Mellon University and Georgetown University, the site uses dataRead More