Where have all the good themes gone?
In the pub on Friday night a question was posed – what was the last really good TV theme? It sparked plenty of discussion. We took a rockist position on the subject, dismissing the two most prevalent trends […]

When random acts of kindness GO BAD: a heartwarming tale of charity, neighbourliness, and litigation.[…]

Hardcore, but they don’t know the score
Midnight. Berlin. You want to go a club. You see the sign:

It looks the part. Reassuringly brusque bouncer. Cool Berliners moving to German art-rock sounds.
And then you here a cheer go up.
A song start[…]

I Heart Germany
In Club Bastard in Berlin this weekend, I spotted and advert for the International Football Film Festival.

Brilliant – a festival packed with football films, and I’ll miss it. All those debates about whether football can […]

When Michael Moore was making Fahrenheit 9/11, and whinging on about the Patriot Act, he managed to miss one of the most insidious aspects of this rushed piece of law. The fact that The Patriot Act is so protectionist and anti-competition that it act[…]

PopNose MP3 of the Week
1. Pipkins – “Gimme Dat Ding”
Welcome one and all to the slight return of PopNose, an MP3 each week (at least initially) which will build over time into a De’Agostini style partwork celebrating the uniq[…]

In 1969 Ed Ruscha attached a camera to his car and drove down Sunset Strip, automatically taking a foto of every building on the street. These fotos noted the anthropology of place, the nature of photography, the implications of autonomous creation, […]

The Newton Arms, Holborn
What a difference an hour or two makes. Squeezing my way in to this pub on Friday at half six I was pretty sure it was the worst boozer I’d been to in a long time. With precious few tables (though a lot of stools) and a[…]

Site News: All the old articles should now be back, and also all the pictures, including the Ultimate Future Shock.
Also! I cornered our lovely host in the pub last night and said “I wish we could do MP3s again”. “Wellllll…..&[…]

The Physics Detective Part Three — Baumgarden Under the Gun
I believe Baumgarden’s story. He seems like the “smoke pot on weekends and sip scotch during late nights at the office” type, not the “I carry grudges against e[…]