http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/business/7799886.stm
Our current state has, I think, rather more to do with the erosion of society and positive functions of the state, than it does to supposed council and government burreaucracy; to successive government's blind faith in, and blank cheques to, business and the finance sector in particular (driving short ( Read more... )

I have been rather impressed by his BBC4 shows of late - he is coming into focus as a thoughtful as well as scathing critic of our culture and of Conservatism. His subdued, heartfelt words about Oliver Postgate at the end of the show following his death were some of the most pertinent made. And in the last of the series, Brooker's absolute horror ( Read more... )

Another giant gone, and another life fully lived, the work done, the influence felt - if not always expressed - in the culture. The man occupies a curious space in English culture; London Jewish, and non-Oxbridge, simultaneously a devout cricket fan and a serious left-wing polemicist...

From "A Slight Ache" to "One for the Road"; from "The Caretaker ( Read more... )

http://www.guardian.co.uk/media/2008/dec/09/television-television
RIP

Ladytron, all albums
Some great stuff, a mixture of the gothic, house and electro-pop - a seductive European pop.
Lindsey Buckingham, all solo albums
'Trouble'. 'I'll Tell You Now'. 'Play in the Rain'. 'Bang the Drum'. 'Surrender the Rain'. 'Say We'll Meet Again'. 'Not Too Late'. 'Under the Skin'. 'Juniper'. 'Time Precious Time'. 'Did You Miss Me'. ' ( Read more... )

Playing: the superb "BBC Radiophonic Workshop: A Retrospective" CD - including vintage Delaware from Malcolm Clarke ('BBC 2 Serial'), so much sublime Delia D. ('Science and Health' for example....) and a beautifully remastered suite from 'The Changes'. That sitar... that opening "Prisoner" style drum rattle... marimba et al, Wonderful music ( Read more... )

I hope soon to be able to say that my prediction was correct; that McCain's choice of Palin (combined evidently with the economic situation) ended his hopes...

Can America dare to thoroughly reject the Right? Surely now.

1. The economic crisis

Should be seen as an inevitable result of neo-liberalism and Thatcherism taken to its logical extremes by Blair & Brown; Canary Wharf and meaningless, hypothetical money and speculations thereupon valourised as the way forward above any other.
In Capitalism, every boom will have its bust, and the perhaps the longer and more ( Read more... )

... came over me when reading J.G. Ballard's visceral and epochal re-imagining-of-the-present short-story, Theatre of War (1977). This is a masterly work that is presumably under-appreciated and seldom cited because of the unfashionable nature of the short-story format and the absurd relegation of Ballard from critical attention, due to the limited ( Read more... )

http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2008/sep/11/pressandpublishing.celebrity

Well said, on this reductive 'culture' and magazine, removing any dissention or idiosyncrasy of thought...

Interesting on the delusions of its former editor, Mark Frith.