Last in this series looking back on 2018 is the year in images. St Helena, Ireland, the Lake District, around Kent, working in London, and much reading. My pictures (bar one), my memories. Most of the photographs I take end up on my Flickr site, for anyone who might be interested (all under a CreativeRead More
Next in these reviews of the year is things seen on screen. Now that the boundaries between film, television and Netflix have blurred so utterly, it seems foolish to think of the various forms of screen entertainment or instruction as being separate from one another. We separate them only out of habit. Anyway, here areRead More
Third in this series of reviews of the year, from my humble perspective, is music. While live music was only occasional, and then too often disappointing (I shall mention no names), recorded music was quite splendid. Spotify is one of the great cultural enablers of the age. Yes, the audio quality is sub-standard, and theRead More
Next in these reviews of the year is the year in books. I read a lot in 2018, and it was a vintage year: for books published in 2018, for those I finally caught up on, and (best of all) all those unexpected surprises from times past. I’ve put the highlights into nine categories, withRead More
Yes, 2018 is winding its way, unapologetically, to the bitter and, and it is time for some reviews of the year. As in past years, I’m producing a series of posts over December listing some of the things cultural that appealed to me over the year. To kick things off, here’s the year online –Read More
I’ve been producing a series of posts on my personal cultural highlights from 2017. They have covered things online, music, books and artworks. Last in the series is a list of highlights. These are some of the one-off events or publications that particularly stood out for me in 2017, and against which 2018 will haveRead More
Next up in this short series of posts on my cultural highlights for 2017 is art works. So, a minimum of words, letting a few favourite pictures seen this year speak for themselves, but naming the gallery where I saw each work (which is not necessarily its permanent home) as well as art and artist.
I read many books in 2017; I drank many cups of coffee. There’s an argument for my reviewing the various coffee drinks I’ve had over the year, intertwined with the locations in which I enjoyed them (ah, the latte I had at that ice cream parlour in Helsinki back in May…), but on balance IRead More
Next in this series of posts of my 2017 cultural highlights is music. This was the year in which sanity eventually overcame parsimony – I gave up on the mind-numbing adverts obligatory with a free Spotify account, and started paying for the service. It has been a marvellous year of discovery. What Spotify does, atRead More
Once again, it is time for some reviews of the year. As with last year, and the year before that, I’m publishing a series of posts on what caught my eye, or ear, over 2017. To begin with, here’s a listing of some of the websites, databases and web services which I spotted during theRead More