The first in a series of aesthetic appreciations of sublime machines. The early stages of a technology are always the most aesthetically evocative. One of the most charming inventions from the time of the dawn of human flight is the dirigible. The dirigible was invented at the last gasp of the era ... Read More...
Month: April 2011
Looks like Ian Russell gets a maiden cream bun this time. Anyone who's given up, click continue. 11965 ... Read More...
Here's this week's devilishly fiendish Round Blogworld Quiz question (see the previous ones and their solutions here). As usual, find the link between these cryptic clues. A point for each item you get, and an imaginary cream bun of regal proportions if you get them all. If you get the ... Read More...
Spring has sprung, the blossoms are in bloom and up and down the country the minds of fashionable foodies have turned to foraging. Where once an annual, autumnal blackberrying trip would satisfy modern man’s hunter-gathering urges, 21st century townies enjoy nothing more than presenting their guests with a pile of ... Read More...
Drawings from the Gulag begins unexpectedly, with a headshot of a proud homo-sovieticus from one of the USSR’s eastern minorities. Wearing thick soviet spectacles and a soviet suit, and with impeccable posture, this man gazes at you, the reader, with firm resolve. Here is a stalwart Comrade-of-the-Month, whose portrait would ... Read More...
Laura Noble is an artist, lecturer, serial blogger & author of The Art of Collecting Photography with primary essays in many photographic monographs & journals. This is her website and her blog is here. When browsing the shelves of a friend's library I was thrilled to find a selection of Japanese ... Read More...
No clues in his octet of discs for the Desert Island, nor in his belief that Waka Waka is Shakira's best song, but Nick Clegg's admission a couple of weeks ago to the fragrant Jemima Khan that he 'cries regularly to music' reminded me of my own 'little weakness'. Do ... Read More...
You may not have noticed my absence, but I thought I’d share a glimpse of what I’ve been up to for the past week or so. It’s been very relaxing here. Just the occasional interruption of the blue horizon by a passing yacht… although when I spotted a banana boat, ... Read More...
The third series of Spiral (in France: Engrenages, meaning not in fact ‘Spiral’ but ‘Gears’) is currently running on BBC Four and has received a modicum of hype as a replacement foreign crime series for the runaway Danish hit The Killing (reviewed by The Dabbler here). Now I’m not often ahead ... Read More...
If you are suspected of having committed a crime, and are placed under arrest by law enforcement officers, never provide an alibi which is bonkers. This advice holds true whether you are innocent or guilty, or even in that grey area between the two, like a Kafka character. Let us assume, ... Read More...
