May 2013
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How religions change their mind →
Interesting piece on this history of various religion’s attitudes to the modern world containing this apt quote:
Medieval thinkers such as St Thomas Aquinas or Maimonides would be astonished at the way we read, preach and pray today, says author Karen Armstrong. “We’ve tended to lose older, sometimes more intuitive patterns of thought,” she says. “They would see...
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Don’t make fun of renowned Dan Brown →
A review of Dan Brown’s latest work, Inferno, written in the style of Dan Brown. Spot on, a bit mean, and hilariously funny.
The critics said his writing was clumsy, ungrammatical, repetitive and repetitive. They said it was full of unnecessary tautology. They said his prose was swamped in a sea of mixed metaphors. For some reason they found something funny in sentences such as “His eyes...
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April 2013
March 2013
The Real-Time Beatles Project
One thing I’ve always found intriguing about the career of The Beatles is how quickly it all happened. Love Me Do was released in 1962, and Let It Be was released in 1970. That’s a measley eight years. And since Love Me Do was the only single they released in 1962, in reality we’re looking at seven years.
For a long time I’ve been thinking, what would it have felt like to experience that musical...
Suit & Tie by Justin Timberlake - Four Tet Remix
I rather like the original of this too, but the more I listen to Four Tet’s remix, the more I prefer it.
You Are Boring
If you’re not a subscriber to The Magazine, then first of all you should be, but it also presuambly means you won’t have read Scott Simpson’s article explaining why you, yes you, are boring. And you should.
Incidentally, I’m not distancing myself from this, I’m totally that guy.
You are a Democrat, an outspoken atheist, and a foodie. You like to say “Science!”...
How the Star Wars / Disney deal happened and... →
At 68, George Lucas was thinking about leaving his galaxy far, far behind. Meanwhile, Robert Iger wanted to secure Disney’s future
Interesting piece in Businessweek, including a rare bit of input direct from George Lucas himself.
February 2013
Why They Hide The Bodies Under My Garage
This is by Girl Band, and it’s a cover of an original track by Blawan. I don’t know either of these bands, but I know this track is a bit like having your brain drilled. But in a good way.
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January 2013
John Grant
John Grant is amazing. He’s a songwriter so overflowing with talent that he made Midlake sound like one of the most ground-breaking bands around when they backed him on Queen of Denmark. If you don’t believe me, just watch him play ‘Where Dreams Go To Die’:
I raise this because he’s got a new album coming out on the 11 March, and I’d put money on it being...
Albums of 2012
I thought, like with my songs of the year, I better get on with this or it’ll be 2014 and I’ll have two years of music to look back on.
In all, I don’t think it’s been a particularly special year for albums. Each of these 10 are great, but a fair few of them wouldn’t have got close to the top 10 in many years. Still, at least singles-wise it’s been...
Songs of 2012
I’ve been dicking around since about mid December putting off writing this post. The trouble is, every day my list of favourite 2012 songs is a bit different. A new song pops in, and another drops off the bottom. The first few have remained pretty constant for a while now, though, and if I don’t publish it soon, it’ll be 2014, so here’s a top 20 of 2012 for you:
Jasmine -...