A few years ago I thought it would be a useful thing for the British Library (my employer) to have a shareable list of its newspapers. I had been speaking to an American archive with whom I wanted to share the records we had, and it seemed a reasonable thing to do. There had beenRead More
I find this photograph fascinating. Not for the man with the motion picture camera that looks like some form of primitive machine gun, not for the late Victorian gentlemen oozing privilege to the tip of their top hats, but the man on the far left. He is half in, half out of the picture, lookingRead More
Farewell the Trumpets is the title of the final volume of the Pax Britannica trilogy on the rise and fall of the British Empire, written by the late Jan Morris. As the three books mostly cover the Victorian era, with the third opening with Queen Victoria’s Diamond Jubilee in 1897, it feels like a goodRead More
2020 was the year in which I photographed. Under lockdown, with all that emptiness and those astonishing clear skies, it was the thing to do. You shared images of anything on social media, just to tell people that you were still there, seeing things. I took many pictures of my home town of Rochester, discoveringRead More
I read quite a few books in 2020, and finished most of them. As with last year, rather than try and survey them all (which would be too much) or even just the ones I thought were good (which would still be too much), I have selected twelve, one for each of the months inRead More
At the start of 2020 Bob Dylan might have been looking forward to a quiet year. He had a few new recordings lined up or completed. There would be around 100 concerts – par for the course. He might weld a few gates, sip a little more whiskey, and rest a while. He was goingRead More
According to Spotify, I listened to 462 music genres over 2020. I did not know that there could be that many genres, and I’m certain I couldn’t name them all. At the end of a year’s listening for those signed up to the service, they send a cheery, personalised summary of your year’s listening, packedRead More
How on earth do you review a year like 2020? To do so would suggest normality, to act as though this not been a year when all regularity stopped. Everything became a parody of itself, an echo of something that we used to do when it seemed that we had a reason for doing so.Read More
One medium that has shone out during the coronavirus pandemic has been radio. From the very start of the crisis, through lockdowns one and two, and life under tiers, radio – and I’m thinking particularly of community radio – has responded with alacrity and great enterprise. All media has responded to the pandemic with urgencyRead More
Among the ugliest of words to have been created to fit the digital age is ‘webinar’ (the ugliest of all is, of course, ‘blog’). It’s a word that highlights the parodic nature of so much of online life. In the real world we had seminars; in the world that imitates it, there are webinars. ThatRead More