A young magician wrote to Teller (of Penn and…) to ask for advice about creating his own style, and what he got back was a manifesto for anyone who wants to create, perform or entertain. It’s blockbuster stuff, for which I am an absolute sucker… We made a solemn vow not to take any job [...]
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Suspicious quote marks
Why you should “never” use quote marks for “emphasis”. Very Suspicious Quotation Marks | Smosh.
Actor! Actor! « Niall Anderson on actors writing novels
A lovely piece by Niall Anderson, which somebody with a chequebook and the remnants of a media business should republish and pay him for. This on Dirk Bogarde’s novels, for instance: Read enough of them, though, and you begin to notice a certain recurring theme: that rich people can have it hard, too. You also [...]
The genius of CCTV – exposed
CCTV police officer ‘chased himself’ after being mistaken for burglar – Telegraph The junior officer, who has not been named, was monitoring an area hit by a series of burglaries in an unnamed market town in the country’s south. As the probationary officer from Sussex Police searched for suspects, the camera operator radioed that he [...]
Extraordinary London transport map
This is an extraordinarily detailed map of London transport, showing lines and depots but also dates of construction, on a real topography. And for some extraordinary reason, it’s French…
A wander round Hogarth’s House
The house in which William Hogarth lived is on the A4, the main road out of London, right up against the Hogarth roundabout with only a beautiful wall between it and six lanes of modern traffic. It’s a lovely place, and I went there for the first time a week ago with a bevy of [...]
A walk around Rotherhithe
Yesterday, my wife and I (and the dog) took a wander along Rotherhithe Street and the Thames Path, upstream from Greenland Dock to Rotherhithe proper. It’s an amazing walk, full of history and replete with municipal neglect and the banal crimes of property developers. Strongly recommended.
Can I read something short now, please?
We all of us have massive gaping holes in our reading, I am sure. Well, perhaps not all of us. Clive James almost certainly doesn’t. But the list of books I haven’t read is growing all the time, and as I get older it looms over me like some dark tower in Mordor (I am [...]
Movembering
I’m doing the Movember thing for the first time this year. By which I mean I’ve booked a check-up with the doctor. Oh yeah, and I’m growing a moustache. I think Movember is one of the nicer things about the modern world. It’s an appealing combination of the silly and the important, and thus approaches [...]
Collecting stories of Smart Humans
A couple of weeks ago, a Twitter acquaintance of mine called Derek Humphries posted this amazing video of a man who’s figured out how to turn old plastic bottles into light. Really. After watching it, Derek and I and a few other people were discussing the wonder of what this fellow had done, and I [...]
