Education, Education, Education…
I was in the last batch of students to enjoy a free education. Graduating in 1989 from my first degree, I received a full, means tested grant with my tuition...
Notes on Focalisation
Here’s a beginner’s guide to focalisation or “point of view”. Focalisation is the perspective from which we experience the narrative being told. I’m going to find a more concise...
Stephen Hawking Lives
“People such as scientist Stephen Hawking wouldn’t have a chance in the U.K., where the National Health Service would say the life of this brilliant man, because of his physical...
First Thoughts on Mrs Dalloway
Ploughing through the first pages of Virginia Woolf’s Mrs Dalloway, I’m reminded of several other artists, not all of them writers. The first is Jack Kerouac. The stream of consciousness...
1994: The Future of the Net
Between 1993 an 1997 I was a university lecturer teaching media studies. I recently found a lecture I wrote in 1994, introducing the Internet to students taking a module entitled...
Turn the Other Cheek
On Sunday, I emerged from my apartment building to find a bunch of Witnesses on the doorstep trying to get in. The head God-botherer asked me if it was OK...
Me and a Medion E1210
Everyone has been Netbook mental this year – including me. As soon as I saw the first Eee PC advertised, I wanted one. A PC you can chuck in your...
The Dark Knight’s New Clothes
I finally got around to seeing The Dark Knight – and I was disappointed. It wasn’t crap – I didn’t leave feeling I’d wasted my time, like I did after sitting through...
Life on Mars US
I’ve just finished watching the aborted US pilot of Life on Mars, based on the hit BBC show about a modern cop who’s hit by a car and wakes up...
3. Profit.
Made-up statistics suggest that 43% of all Internet communication is the simple recitation and repetition of catchphrases, script snippets and sketches from popular TV programmes. I’m not taking about random...