How
best to say hello?
I work in a restaurant. It’s an okay sort of place, not much in the way of bells and whistles; there will be no Michelin star forthcoming, but we do knock out a jolly nice leg of lamb. To put it another way, whilst I am n[…]

Underworld by Don DeLillo
You can’t help but be impressed by the scope and ambition of this book: it sets itself up as a (the?) Great American Novel of the second half of the 20th Century, starting with a famous 1951 baseball game* and trying t[…]

Oh no! EVIL Daleks! Oh no!
Following up on Tom’s notes below, he may be right that it’s no bad thing not to have Daleks in the new Dr Who, but I was delighted by the reason. Apparently they are owned by the estate of Terry Nation (and we&[…]

White Pride. Ryman before he discovered white on white
Robert Ryman is known as white on white, 30 years of painting nothing but white on white, the pure minimalist who concentrates not on the artists hand but on the nature of pigment and what that p[…]

Drowned by beer[…]

Thank you Geeta! Hello fact fans. The quote below says three things to me: that 1) to Holmes, science comprises Frank Kogan’s definition of “what I saw in high school” rather than “what everyone agrees on” and 2) as earl[…]

BROWN WEDGE COMPETITION: Design a Bauhaus Dalek!!
(backstory of idea to be found in comments box HERE, viz stevem’s rather brilliant observation that – contra bauhaus precepts – form did NOT follow function when that davros was a-[…]

FT Top 100 Films
71: DUMB AND DUMBER
Plenty of issues are thrown up by this film. Not least how influential it has been for the last ten years of screen comedy. It is clear that the Farrelly Brothers have softened since this their first hit – w[…]

PUBWATCH
No, not a local scheme which unfairly says Banned In one, Banned In All. Rather an occasional series keeping our eyes on pubs which are being refurbed and what they turn into. Or in this case, a pub which the entire building which houses it […]

No Daleks: marketing nightmare for the BBC, aesthetic boost – though I have plenty of faith in the new Dr.Who team, it’s rare to find writers who know how to tell a good Dalek story. The original 1964 Dalek yarn is painfully slow to watch[…]