Blog posts - page 44
Nick Cave and music that is too difficult to listen to
28 Oct 2016 music
I finally got round to listening to the new Nick Cave & The Bad Seeds album Skeleton Tree. It is an incredible listen, but also quite harrowing. After twenty-three years as a band and sixteen studio releases, the music still manages to sound fresh and different. Warren Ellis’ sparse but haunting instrumentation adds a strange melancholy air to the proceedings. I’ve listened a few times now and I think it might be one of my favourite albums by the band. But also, I don’t plan on listening to it too much.
'The Shock Doctrine' and the Modern World.
19 Oct 2016 book review
Oh boy. If ever there was a book that was designed to make you furious about the current state of the world, this is it. Although The Shock Doctrine was published in 2007, Naomi Klein’s insight into the conservative mindset still remains sadly relevant to the world today.
'With us or against us': Brexit and The Daily Mail
12 Oct 2016 politics
So I was going to write about something else entirely, but then the I stumbled on The Daily Mail on Twitter. I try to avoid it when I can because it is always a hate-filled rag, but I couldn’t avoid it. Today it published this front page:
September Link Round up
06 Oct 2016 link round up
Summer has flown away, the trees are turning and autumn has hit with a punch overnight. All of a sudden it’s a bit grim outside and we hunker down, gather straw around us and hibernate until winter. Ah well, here’s some things that I enjoyed in September, and you might too:
Rediscovering poetry
28 Sep 2016 poetry
When I was a teenager, I wrote poetry. Well, maybe that’s the wrong word. It was half-baked doggerel chopped up into lines that showed how really angsty I was, man, and how no one understood me. You know. Teenage stuff. I scrawled in notebooks, filling endless pages with such nonsense.
A report into the spread of M3W
20 Sep 2016 stories
Thank you all for attending in such trying circumstances. Dobson sends her apologies.
The Ambiguity of Captain Fantastic
14 Sep 2016 films
Captain Fantastic is a brilliant film. Sensitive and compassionate, it tells the story of a family isolated from society, who are forced to go cross country to attend their mother’s funeral. In doing so, they have to enter mainstream society for the first time. It is remarkably beautiful, with an excellent script and nuanced performances, especially from the children and Viggo Mortensen as Ben.
August bits and bobs
06 Sep 2016 link round up
I was away for a large portion of August, with my phone deliberately turned off. I was in the Isle of Skye and saw amazing things, like the sunset above. As such, I don’t have much this month, but there are a few things I enjoyed:
Theatre and the Art of the Possible
01 Sep 2016 theatre
I’m just back from a week in Scotland. I spent a couple of days at the Edinburgh Fringe, then onto the incredibly beautiful Isle of Skye.Then back to Edinburgh for a night. It was an excellent trip, filled with delight.
Writing Fast and Sloppy
17 Aug 2016 writing
So this is a post on freewriting and i am carrying on writing without stopping and i can’t stop i just have to keep writing writing got to keep writing and-