Month: August 2017

This blog’s subheading

In case you were wondering, this blog’s subheading is an extension of something Hemingway once said. According to him, “writing is easy; all you have to do is sit at your keyboard and bleed.” Well, no one can do your … Continue reading

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Aim high, fail heroically

I was reading the theatre reviews and came across the Guardian’s Michael Billington on the new Alan Ayckbourn. It’s obvious from the review that Billington is less than enthused by the play, but because it’s Ayckbourn – indisputably one of … Continue reading

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Friday Mars etc blog: XKCD

https://xkcd.com/1877/. Licensed under Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial License.

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Adam Smith: The Torpor of the Mind

The radio the other morning had an interview with the linguist who invents languages for Game of Thrones and other Hollywood/ big production series and films. It’s worth taking a deep breath at this – here is a guy whose … Continue reading

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Friday Mars Moon blog

Ha! You caught me out. The Moon’s cool as well. https://www.theguardian.com/science/2017/aug/09/moon-had-magnetic-field-at-least-a-billion-years-longer-than-thought-study

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Ultraviolet: don’t mention the war.

There’s two reasons why us Martians like our old films, books, and TV series. For one, the old stuff is easier to find and quote or clip from for free; you can even often watch old TV in its entirety … Continue reading

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Hitch, don’t tell

Hitchcock is not a slavish follower of show don’t tell – only a fool would be – but he often used it to great effect. In the clip below we see the famous opening of Rear Window, where we deduce … Continue reading

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Friday Mars blog: a salute to SpaceX

http://www.latimes.com/business/la-fi-spacex-red-dragon-20170721-story.html Musk has staked his entire fortune on self-driving cars and Mars. Both are money pits and he is beginning to feel the pinch. He wouldn’t expect our sympathy – he’s an entrepreneur, it’s what he does – but I … Continue reading

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Melville, thou reasonest well.

In chapter two of Moby Dick, Ishmael stands before the Spouter Inn for the first time:   It was a queer sort of place—a gable-ended old house, one side palsied as it were, and leaning over sadly. It stood on a … Continue reading

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