A chain of events has led us to Sesame Street. (1) Some weeks ago, Kirst brought home Feist’s album, The Reminder. The only track I’d heard before was “1-2-3-4″, via the ipod nano ad. (2) I felt having the album in the flat was definitely a good thing, but having not had the chance to [...]
Archive for April, 2008
Can you tell me how to get to…
Posted in Listening, Watching, tagged 1234, andrea bocelli and elmo, bert, elmo, feist, norah jones and elmo, sesame street, the reminder on April 28, 2008 | 1 Comment »
Trailer of the Week
Posted in Watching, tagged lisa f. jackson, rape in the congo, the greatest silence on April 26, 2008 | Leave a Comment »
I wouldn’t normally post about something twice in such a short time – and I doubt you’ll ever get to see this in a cinema – but I couldn’t let the opportunity pass to flag up the issue I wrote about yesterday. So this week’s trailer is for Lisa F. Jackson’s Sundance award-winning documentary, The [...]
Suffering in silence
Posted in Thinking, Watching, tagged congo, democratic republic of the congo, e-petition, interahamwe, lisa f. jackson, medecins sans frontieres, mike thompson, rape in the congo, the greatest silence on April 25, 2008 | 1 Comment »
I was brought up in a house where Radio 4′s Today programme was part of the daily breakfast ritual. Getting up without a dose of it now feels all wrong; like waking to find oneself upside down or under the bed. The drawback is that my early morning dreamscapes are on occasion invaded by the [...]
Heaven and Hell
Posted in Going Out, Watching, tagged almeida, jesus hopped the a-train, joseph mawle, judas iscariot, stephen adly guirgis, the last days of judas iscariot on April 21, 2008 | Leave a Comment »
On Saturday I saw ‘The Last Days of Judas Iscariot‘ at the Almeida. The lights went down to reveal a stage littered with broken grey slate tiles; like a room half-built, with a single chair in the centre and a couple of scruffy desks at each side. This was purgatory, otherwise known as ‘Hope’, and [...]
Of gated baths and captives
Posted in Going Out, Listening, tagged a cork tale wake, captive state, chris bathgate, juliet murphy photos, slaughtered lamb on April 16, 2008 | 2 Comments »
Chris Bathgate is a singer-songwriter from the Michigan town of Ann Arbor. On Friday I went to hear him play at the rather lovely Slaughtered Lamb in Clerkenwell. Bathgate’s sound is folk dosed with a kind of experimental post-classical grandeur; glued together with scholarly, poetic lyrics it’s a beguiling and often transcendent mix. Have a [...]
Never again? It’s happening right now
Posted in Going Out, Thinking, tagged Aegis Trust, Darfur, Global Day for Darfur, Jonathan Freedland, Nick Clegg, Sudan on April 14, 2008 | 1 Comment »
Today was the London marathon. But at just after midday, before the streets started to fill with hundreds of shivering, traumatized-looking people cloaked in silver foil, the area around Pall Mall got busy anyway. Because today was also the fifth Global Day for Darfur. As I walked towards the Sudanese Embassy on Cleveland Row, I [...]
The future’s personal
Posted in Thinking, tagged AEG Electrolux, graphic splash expression, interactive advertising, mini advertising, minority report, personalized advertising, sony vaio, the beam team, tom cruise on April 11, 2008 | 2 Comments »
There’s a brilliant scene in Spielberg’s Minority Report where the fugitive Tom Cruise runs through a shopping mall and some adverts on the wall start to talk to him. Not only do they know his name, they also speak directly to his circumstances: “Need an escape? Blue can take you”; “John Anderton, you could use [...]
Spy Games
Posted in Thinking, tagged aviation, C2i International, plane stupid, toby kendall on April 9, 2008 | 1 Comment »
Following up from my rant last week about flying, there’s a fascinating article in today’s Guardian, about a spy who was planted by nobody-knows-quite-who in an effort to undermine the anti-aviation group Plane Stupid. Oxford alumnus Toby Kendall – pictured here in a fetching combination of pseudo-activist scarf and baseball cap – hardly looks like [...]
Trailer of the Week
Posted in Watching on April 5, 2008 | 1 Comment »
Ok here we go with a new feature: once a week I’ll post a trailer that I think is worth watching, either because it heralds a great film to come, or because the trailer is worth a watch for its own sake. This week’s treat is Tropic Thunder, a somewhat provocative-looking comedy with a dream [...]
Flying Low
Posted in Thinking, tagged aviation, climate change, heathrow expansion, stop airport expansion on April 3, 2008 | 1 Comment »
So last week Heathrow’s Terminal 5 opened, but not to the adulatory fanfare airport execs had hoped for. Instead, the launch descended into farce. At least one group of people wanted that outcome. On Thursday morning, hundreds of citizens with no intention of travelling anywhere had converged at the airport. Come 11am, they donned red [...]
