tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-187753562024-03-18T20:36:38.991+00:00cultural snowTim Fhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14681067872556519250noreply@blogger.comBlogger2063125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-18775356.post-17568713404103820582024-03-18T06:30:00.008+00:002024-03-18T06:30:00.125+00:00About comediansOnce again, I just record these observations with little or no comment. One day, they’ll have a place in my magnum opus about cultural assumptions, the bells-and-whistles box set spun off from my <a href="https://culturalsnow.blogspot.com/2020/04/about-dissertation.html">MA dissertation</a>. But till then...<div><br /></div><div>In Radio 4’s slightly contrived panel show One Person Found This Helpful, <a href="https://www.bbc.co.uk/sounds/play/m001x4xg">Frank Skinner</a> feels obliged to explain that Tom Stoppard is a <i>“famous playwright”</i>, and given that the gag is about which of them, Skinner or Stoppard, would grab the headlines if they both perished in an air crash, that need for clarification is significant. (A few years ago <a href="https://culturalsnow.blogspot.com/2015/02/goneril-who-is-goneril.html">Stoppard himself</a> mused gloomily about what needs to be explained these days.)</div><div><br /></div><div>And on the same day, in The Observer, <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2024/mar/17/cabbies-taxi-drivers-frank-hester-diane-abbott-conservatives">Stewart Lee</a>, a comic of a roughly similar vintage, lobs in a reference to Messiaen’s birdsong and finds himself under no such obligation. </div><div><br /></div>
<iframe allow="accelerometer; autoplay; clipboard-write; encrypted-media; gyroscope; picture-in-picture; web-share" allowfullscreen="" frameborder="0" height="315" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/XRRhsX4j1Oc?si=m-XRIIgcn9jPB97Y" title="YouTube video player" width="560"></iframe>Tim Fhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14681067872556519250noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-18775356.post-2530385492041891412024-03-15T13:35:00.003+00:002024-03-18T20:36:06.639+00:00About a classical education<p></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh-VPWHchEp-UWPdcYrBdnLqZm2eujyeJhKyKNGrRAL6RktXIhhz5xC575dtJAr6iNmG9ebyIhguJyQjCXwDbFQ6ClzDJZ_PlvrVe0rjtxYSdqVN3-iGTGgJZ1dnt4u_5bYLMYX4Cqe06RaMu2uB0ip48bQDIHJa2WgcUZ22IToqVEeRbmgXuik/s1200/dante.jpeg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="900" data-original-width="1200" height="300" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh-VPWHchEp-UWPdcYrBdnLqZm2eujyeJhKyKNGrRAL6RktXIhhz5xC575dtJAr6iNmG9ebyIhguJyQjCXwDbFQ6ClzDJZ_PlvrVe0rjtxYSdqVN3-iGTGgJZ1dnt4u_5bYLMYX4Cqe06RaMu2uB0ip48bQDIHJa2WgcUZ22IToqVEeRbmgXuik/w400-h300/dante.jpeg" width="400" /></a></div><br />An interesting piece by Emma Green in The New Yorker about a resurgence in what’s known as <a href="https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2024/03/18/have-the-liberal-arts-gone-conservative?">liberal arts and/or classical education</a>. Whatever you want to call it, it stands in opposition to the modern mainstream of pedagogy, favouring the canonical Great Books (and implicitly Dead White Males), which makes it popular with right-wing politicians, although as Green makes clear, that’s by no means the whole story. And if I look at a Trump rally, I wonder how many present, including the main speaker, would understand this gag: <p></p><p><i></i></p><blockquote><i>And then there’s literature: one New York City public-high-school reading list includes graphic novels, Michelle Obama’s memoir, and a coming-of-age book about identity featuring characters named Aristotle and Dante. In classical schools, high-school students read Aristotle and Dante.</i></blockquote><p></p><p>And before I’m accused of snobbery, I’m well aware that there are vast gaps in my own cultural knowledge; opera, for example is little more than a blur. That said, I do know that Richard Strauss wasn’t Johann’s son, unlike the poor sap <a href="https://slippedisc.com/2024/03/ignorance-abounds-at-english-national-opera/">writing on the ENO website</a>... </p><p><b>PS: </b>And while we’re there, the <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2024/mar/17/arts-council-england-declared-war-on-opera-and-excellence-anti-elitism">Arts Council of England</a> is condemning opera critics for, among other sins, writing <i>“almost exclusively writing from a classical music perspective”</i>.</p>Tim Fhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14681067872556519250noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-18775356.post-74547350880703417962024-03-10T15:15:00.000+00:002024-03-10T15:15:01.833+00:00About ‘Hallelujah’<p>A while back, I wrote a <a href="https://www.goodreads.com/en/book/show/6577093">book about Leonard Cohen</a>, with a focus on <a href="https://www.theatlantic.com/culture/archive/2022/07/leonard-cohen-hallelujah/661461/">That Song</a>, which had become ubiquitous two decades or more after it had first been released (and mostly ignored). And today, in the midst of an online discussion about the incongruous uses to which it’s been put (see also ‘My Heart Will Go On’ and ‘I Will Always Love You’) I finally realise that I should have called the book SAD JEWS FUCKING.</p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj8ORMgrRTtXDK_Ea7ymb6lLF4LnvZeALKq6hQ7VxW-WkJENEkCrLkFusUfjb_ZvoUDc1-IwW3fO95lF99pikj039zj1mQgPCh6JRRKkrcZcLS1be_kXCy1_NZFx-j5X-lfy4B46bhIXO_QKPC-tJlMMHs-ZNixKUZla22gJpn5VeO0lhRlWRhh/s970/sad%20jews.png" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="256" data-original-width="970" height="105" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj8ORMgrRTtXDK_Ea7ymb6lLF4LnvZeALKq6hQ7VxW-WkJENEkCrLkFusUfjb_ZvoUDc1-IwW3fO95lF99pikj039zj1mQgPCh6JRRKkrcZcLS1be_kXCy1_NZFx-j5X-lfy4B46bhIXO_QKPC-tJlMMHs-ZNixKUZla22gJpn5VeO0lhRlWRhh/w400-h105/sad%20jews.png" width="400" /></a></div>Tim Fhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14681067872556519250noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-18775356.post-71031686611824470732024-03-07T20:47:00.000+00:002024-03-07T20:47:01.556+00:00About pop<p>Just came across <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2008/jan/17/onceyoupop">something I wrote</a> for The Guardian in 2008, offering a sort of <i>“OK, boomer”</i> sigh avant la lettre, suggesting that old people should stop appropriating pop music. Which in turn prompted this delightful response:</p><p><i></i></p><blockquote><i>Presumably by ‘old’ the author means himself; he’s bald and looks very boring. Probably not intelligent enough for classical though; Andy Williams fan? Nana Mouskouri?</i></blockquote><p></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEicCgUbEMgmSJeNZ1wxgcFHAw2pzb2PUbG3DBUl8hUGPCFuWL8DCagfyn7gWZ7Tg6vuTKWGeE0YjKOYtqmDFW5VWs8BfYkDe2xK_Zt4H9k5wIUivByNvgDgML365GdRw7hYJmo6UsSalIFJLneaPtva8rhMugSlVRlc_TeArxnYOVq5hFcFRuuo/s1340/nana-mouskouri-white-rose-of-athens-uk-vinyl-lp-album-record-6870571-78174.jpeg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1340" data-original-width="1280" height="400" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEicCgUbEMgmSJeNZ1wxgcFHAw2pzb2PUbG3DBUl8hUGPCFuWL8DCagfyn7gWZ7Tg6vuTKWGeE0YjKOYtqmDFW5VWs8BfYkDe2xK_Zt4H9k5wIUivByNvgDgML365GdRw7hYJmo6UsSalIFJLneaPtva8rhMugSlVRlc_TeArxnYOVq5hFcFRuuo/w383-h400/nana-mouskouri-white-rose-of-athens-uk-vinyl-lp-album-record-6870571-78174.jpeg" width="383" /></a></div><div><br /></div><b>PS:</b> On a happier note, I’m now <a href="https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/cocksplat">in the dictionary</a>. For context, <a href="https://culturalsnow.blogspot.com/2016/06/about-donald-trump-and-fleeting-fame.html">go here</a>.<br /><p></p><p></p>Tim Fhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14681067872556519250noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-18775356.post-28394098168906246812024-03-01T12:24:00.001+00:002024-03-01T12:24:15.362+00:00About Brontez Purnell<p>I can’t claim to know much about the work of Brontez Purnell but it does seem to me that if you’re the subject of the New York Times’s By The Book feature, affecting not to read very much is an, um, interesting look.</p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgrV3XxEGfQCEGjOaY8weotGRqbfY6QCEL8dOj1ZZgerFgKGDiYT-YEfNpgHaEb8d8cMLYWo7vCTGUmKHDnj2vcN-duh12WjcOY7I7YiDwZ0aB0Dv6CMnH6G-RgOW-E6X6KnNXSueE2kpN3WTgXu_zF6GnEE6_7spY3M2bgQkbFOPHpU7D8DfZM/s2000/brontez.png" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="2000" data-original-width="1548" height="400" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgrV3XxEGfQCEGjOaY8weotGRqbfY6QCEL8dOj1ZZgerFgKGDiYT-YEfNpgHaEb8d8cMLYWo7vCTGUmKHDnj2vcN-duh12WjcOY7I7YiDwZ0aB0Dv6CMnH6G-RgOW-E6X6KnNXSueE2kpN3WTgXu_zF6GnEE6_7spY3M2bgQkbFOPHpU7D8DfZM/w310-h400/brontez.png" width="310" /></a></div>Tim Fhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14681067872556519250noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-18775356.post-29682943841532794972024-02-25T20:46:00.001+00:002024-02-25T20:46:11.465+00:00About Rosencrantz and Guildenstern<p>In, of all places, <a href="https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/entertainment-arts-68379238?fbclid=IwAR2SeyPZr2lydxhktj_qpxD3-GiswR-fdGP3ODkBJVgUgLc5OFRN6Clw6A8">a news item</a> about the death of Stuart Organ, who for many years played the headmaster of Grange Hill school, I see Tom Stoppard’s Rosencrantz and Guildenstern are Dead described as <i>“a spin-off of William Shakespeare’s Hamlet”</i>. And the phrase strikes me as totally wrong-headed but the more I think of it, it feels about right. After all, R&G isn’t a sequel, nor yet a prequel. It takes place in the same fictional universe as Hamlet, the action of which is progressing at the same time, and occasionally intersects. It exists in relation to Hamlet in the same way that Torchwood and The Sarah-Jane Adventures exist in relation to Doctor Who, sharing characters and narratives, but with a different emphasis.</p><p>But then I still wonder whether the author of the piece actually knows that, or just threw the sentence together after a brief Wikipedia check. And do you know what makes me doubt her? It’s the fact that she refers not to <i>“Hamlet”</i>, but to <i>“William Shakespeare’s Hamlet”</i>. Someone who knew about theatre would instinctively offer the title alone, assuming that everyone knows what Hamlet is, who wrote it, approximately what it’s about, even if they aren’t able to quote it by the yard. Which feels a bit harsh, because her definition of Stoppard’s play is ultimately correct. But it’s accidentally correct and I wonder whether that’s good enough.</p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiqockqBqa9BW-G84f1ERavRE7E0qjrtJcr_hDqRJMhhRKvKeYgYowyEq74vLaLIeRMEOhLGuTQfwL-mTcEgeFRDtHGEF36WW6HrYoSIiMGbdUoosYUQ3RzqTutDBrtKu9SMc2oRskYo3WluE9Er-M8WC2a_GW8ejbXMIDGv1I5ixetAiCESBXg/s342/R&G.jpeg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="147" data-original-width="342" height="172" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiqockqBqa9BW-G84f1ERavRE7E0qjrtJcr_hDqRJMhhRKvKeYgYowyEq74vLaLIeRMEOhLGuTQfwL-mTcEgeFRDtHGEF36WW6HrYoSIiMGbdUoosYUQ3RzqTutDBrtKu9SMc2oRskYo3WluE9Er-M8WC2a_GW8ejbXMIDGv1I5ixetAiCESBXg/w400-h172/R&G.jpeg" width="400" /></a></div>Tim Fhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14681067872556519250noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-18775356.post-37941068719742856212024-02-21T08:46:00.005+00:002024-02-21T17:47:22.885+00:00About syrup<p></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEga3hJDsWiYwavSn7GM3lWukhC_s_YcvSxRkhgOdpsjVgv__0wvXEvBnWcTkANgYoE9bkBRD0EaNeRwSKnb7cA9yCf_05WdKdUDEh8k5YlO-5AE4rOioSO7HGFmTp2MoihUV1hdqqGNIl_X0sY-M8g5cBZLkVNFbWrBs5TAzwXl1eePLH4FjtTa/s615/lyles.jpeg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="461" data-original-width="615" height="300" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEga3hJDsWiYwavSn7GM3lWukhC_s_YcvSxRkhgOdpsjVgv__0wvXEvBnWcTkANgYoE9bkBRD0EaNeRwSKnb7cA9yCf_05WdKdUDEh8k5YlO-5AE4rOioSO7HGFmTp2MoihUV1hdqqGNIl_X0sY-M8g5cBZLkVNFbWrBs5TAzwXl1eePLH4FjtTa/w400-h300/lyles.jpeg" width="400" /></a></div><br />The clever people who sell Lyle’s Golden Syrup are <a href="https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-68347249">removing the image of bees swarming round a dead lion</a> from at least some of its packaging. <i>“Our fresh, contemporary design brings Lyle’s into the modern day, appealing to the everyday British household while still feeling nostalgic and authentically Lyle’s,”</i> says the brand director, which obviously means nothing whatsoever, so others have stepped in to fill the gap. <i>“The story of it coming from religious belief could put the brand in an exclusionary space, especially if it was to go viral on X or TikTok,”</i> suggests a marketing academic. <i>“It’s woke!”</i> screech the readers of the <a href="https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-13103969/Lyles-Golden-Syrup-hits-criticism-Gen-Z-logo.html#comments">Daily Mail</a>, but frankly, what isn’t these days, as far as they’re concerned?<p></p><p>I know as much as they do, so here’s my guess. They wanted to get away from the Biblical reference (<i>“Out of the strong came forth sweetness,”</i> Judges, chapter 14) not because it might offend anybody’s sensibilities, religious or otherwise, not because they’ve finally realised a rotting cat isn’t the most appetising way to sell sweet goop, but because nobody understands it. Nobody knows who Samson (who supposedly said it) is, and nobody really cares. Why would you buy something that confronts you with your own ignorance every day? The semi-abstract lion’s face that replaces it doesn’t particularly refer to anything, doesn't challenge or provoke anything, especially not curiosity.</p><p>Of course, being a pedant above all things, my main objection to the logo is that the quote’s about honey, rather than syrup, which is a different product. But who cares about that?</p><p><b>PS: </b>This may or may not be relevant. But I’m pretty sure it’s true.</p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi_SkfQJU9gU_ZaiDpy6_3F7l-xJk0Pn2gfwFSqAg7LFnsiSxiebGoUGEA3U7r-wI-oO4vGMz64X2yEy_raJlWiz5kDCNIyRfL4-tsVRl9EFqhABZoTBVEaV0Hhd_-vH0N2nwlm3fkr7l2CYQsWPMcaetC_BKSVdoS0WBfYHr8skT0bveuLEEhE/s526/politics%20and%20religion.jpeg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="526" data-original-width="526" height="400" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi_SkfQJU9gU_ZaiDpy6_3F7l-xJk0Pn2gfwFSqAg7LFnsiSxiebGoUGEA3U7r-wI-oO4vGMz64X2yEy_raJlWiz5kDCNIyRfL4-tsVRl9EFqhABZoTBVEaV0Hhd_-vH0N2nwlm3fkr7l2CYQsWPMcaetC_BKSVdoS0WBfYHr8skT0bveuLEEhE/w400-h400/politics%20and%20religion.jpeg" width="400" /></a></div>Tim Fhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14681067872556519250noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-18775356.post-53587051283222364162024-02-19T07:30:00.003+00:002024-02-19T10:36:24.096+00:00About new music<p>Sean Thomas in The Spectator claims to have found empirical evidence that <a href="https://archive.ph/61eGt">music is getting worse</a>. I agree with his conclusion, but don’t recognise his claim to objectivity; music is getting worse because I’m getting old and so, presumably, is Mr Thomas. If I were young, it would all be great, but I’m not, which is why I only get excited by the Top of the Pops re-runs on Saturday nights if they date from 1978 to 1983. Incidentally, Thomas’s characterisation of a modern lyric as <i>“the desire of the singer to ‘kill his mofo bitches’ and celebrate his expensive car, hat and Rolex watch”</i> suggests that he last listened to a rap record in about 1991, and then only fleetingly.</p><p>Moreover, it needs to be noted that this year sees the 100th anniversary of Gershwin’s Rhapsody in Blue, and the 200th of Beethoven’s Ninth Symphony, two groundbreaking works whose influence is still being felt. But I bet that in 1924 and 1824, there were plenty of people who could come up with an algorithm to prove that they were rubbish.</p><p>There is great music being produced now that will still be heard and loved in 2124 and beyond. We just don’t know what it is yet.</p>
<iframe allow="accelerometer; autoplay; clipboard-write; encrypted-media; gyroscope; picture-in-picture; web-share" allowfullscreen="" frameborder="0" height="315" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/J4iWC0BKCmk?si=Ung1nigejGZAVkyV" title="YouTube video player" width="560"></iframe>Tim Fhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14681067872556519250noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-18775356.post-48332474391821260372024-02-13T15:11:00.001+00:002024-02-13T15:11:23.488+00:00About Gregg and Timmy<p>I <a href="https://culturalsnow.blogspot.com/2020/10/about-toms.html">mentioned a few years ago</a> that the two best ever instalments of the Sunday Times magazine’s venerable A Life in the Day feature were both by actors called Tom. What I hadn’t realised, because like so many others, I’ve lost the habit of burrowing into the weekend papers, is that the Telegraph has for some time been running its own pallid simulacrum of ALitD and, unsurprisingly, it’s not as good.</p><p>Well, until the gurning greengrocer Gregg Wallace took his turn and, well, it still wasn’t good but at least it was funny.</p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhKE1Chw9X9GTlXM_i42rIR2QvLd06RrytKOGUb_uL9430wuoqbj0TmtbPCb2RNNphyaX2OZ9EtyS4w6ws05XRmVFMC8vvNuItxbdFjBFQDBuMOJW28HNchhW5w6ygaNDrfH1SQoOEKup3-MfHUrsqKjO2bMKpwH1XbMXwl50tGfn1iY3nQEjJQ/s600/gregg.jpeg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="600" data-original-width="501" height="400" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhKE1Chw9X9GTlXM_i42rIR2QvLd06RrytKOGUb_uL9430wuoqbj0TmtbPCb2RNNphyaX2OZ9EtyS4w6ws05XRmVFMC8vvNuItxbdFjBFQDBuMOJW28HNchhW5w6ygaNDrfH1SQoOEKup3-MfHUrsqKjO2bMKpwH1XbMXwl50tGfn1iY3nQEjJQ/w334-h400/gregg.jpeg" width="334" /></a></div><div><br /></div><div>The problem was that, unlike the Toms’ takes on their respective days, Wallace wasn’t trying to be funny, and the fact that his pride in being able to get into the gym half an hour before mere civilians, his staunch defence of Harvester, his wargaming, his lack of body fat, all speak of someone with such a total lack of self-awareness that <a href="https://twitter.com/AccidentalP?ref_src=twsrc%5Egoogle%7Ctwcamp%5Eserp%7Ctwgr%5Eauthor">Alan Partridge comparisons</a> were inevitable. <i>“Is this a parody?”</i> we chorused.</div><div><br /></div><div>No, it wasn’t. But this is:</div><div><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjipYSeFp5FbAYxWvE_ms_wQGwmwh8FmFVyqL0wSlpbhtCH9udE7ktk4J0kd6AJzqhtBVh8SLFR71VyjxYpdR-uXXnwmEfFTM2hQnWoKXJ2nxWmHzzCsO2V7xvs7EVUWqDhYzEDiy76HHYLkzP6WjyFBT7z-Xtt7rCr-fKvpqSSNePTFwE6WnNC/s2000/mallett.png" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="2000" data-original-width="1627" height="400" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjipYSeFp5FbAYxWvE_ms_wQGwmwh8FmFVyqL0wSlpbhtCH9udE7ktk4J0kd6AJzqhtBVh8SLFR71VyjxYpdR-uXXnwmEfFTM2hQnWoKXJ2nxWmHzzCsO2V7xvs7EVUWqDhYzEDiy76HHYLkzP6WjyFBT7z-Xtt7rCr-fKvpqSSNePTFwE6WnNC/w325-h400/mallett.png" width="325" /></a></div><br /><div>This, Brian Blessed gong, Frazzles, the ghost of Patrick Macnee and all, is the work of <a href="https://twitter.com/MarkBowsherFilm/status/1757071799701897448?fbclid=IwAR14ZPLWIPq8pT_XLzpNDV_p7YoC6AWRSJzZwRrMWmJmXPAxtbuC7NZ0yPM">Mark Bowsher</a> but inevitably the whole thing developed a life of its own within hours and several people thought it was genuine. Well, genuine in the sense that Timmy Mallett himself had written it, not that it was in any way an accurate representation of his life.</div><div><br /></div><div>Because ultimately all of the other articles are artifices, constructions hovering in a liminal space between objective reality and how the subject wishes to be presented. The difference is that the two Toms (and Jeffrey Bernard, who collaborated on Baker’s piece) were fully aware of what they were doing and Gregg Wallace wasn’t. And I’d like to think that if Timmy Mallett (with whom I once shared a lift, sandwiched between him and Tony Blackburn, which does demonstrate how easy it is to drift into Partridge territory) were to do a real article on these lines, it would be closer to the Toms than to what Gregg did. But a tiny bit like the parody version as well. Just to keep us guessing.</div>Tim Fhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14681067872556519250noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-18775356.post-50394223591648585952024-02-11T16:48:00.001+00:002024-02-11T16:48:04.955+00:00About Richard and Davros<p></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiNHyR69hYn8HKbnoDy7Dy0vCl7f5ILyCsICY8s0GMYwsZQ27mviHHxhP5oDGzkKXTLesjvojQBvWgta1tAjLQZ9j69di-rbcW1HYGslP9BnVSS5zDrOu8gJ3tSVPfO688aJzIgH0bmY_eczbrLxqVljUQKqWBzvm76YU0IBsWso0V5ExEbRdiG/s980/fraser%20r%20iii.jpeg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="588" data-original-width="980" height="240" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiNHyR69hYn8HKbnoDy7Dy0vCl7f5ILyCsICY8s0GMYwsZQ27mviHHxhP5oDGzkKXTLesjvojQBvWgta1tAjLQZ9j69di-rbcW1HYGslP9BnVSS5zDrOu8gJ3tSVPfO688aJzIgH0bmY_eczbrLxqVljUQKqWBzvm76YU0IBsWso0V5ExEbRdiG/w400-h240/fraser%20r%20iii.jpeg" width="400" /></a></div><br />There have been complaints that Michelle Terry <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/stage/2024/jan/30/disabled-actors-on-reclaiming-richard-iii-globe-shakespeare">is to play Richard III</a> at the Globe. Not because she’s she’s the artistic director of the theatre and appears to have nabbed the plum role for herself, but because the monarch has a disability, and Ms Terry doesn’t. (The fact that she’s a woman isn’t an issue, it seems.)<p></p><p>As always, these arguments throw up further arguments; now we’ve dug up Richard’s body, we know the nature of his disability (scoliosis), so does this mean that only actors with this specific condition should play him? And if actors with other disabilities (Arthur Hughes, Mat Fraser, Peter Dinklage) are allowed to take the role, would that not throw up the rather reductive and insulting implication that all disabilities are much the same? I’m also a little confused by Fraser’s response to Terry’s casting: <i>“I will be personally boycotting the production if it goes ahead with this casting,”</i> he says. <i>“I’m done with the pretenders.”</i> Isn’t pretending what actors do?</p><p>But wait – since Richard embodies that horrid old trope about the disabled villain, should the role even be played at all? Or, if it is, shouldn’t we excise all the references to his disability – <i>“rudely stamped”</i> and so on – to fit 21st-century sensibilities? I mean, that would seem to be the stance taken by Russell T Davies, who has declared that the evil genius Davros <a href="https://www.radiotimes.com/tv/sci-fi/doctor-who-davros-change-newsupdate/">should from now on have legs</a>. Which does mean that nobody can complain if Michelle Terry plays him.</p><p><b>PS: </b>While we’re here, can we stop saying that art that doesn’t quite gel with those modern sensibilities (Friends is a apparently a main offender) is <i>“problematic”</i>? Art, especially drama, that doesn’t present us with problems is all but pointless.</p>Tim Fhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14681067872556519250noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-18775356.post-60536723063285316812024-02-01T21:47:00.001+00:002024-02-01T21:47:26.269+00:00About the Sixties<p></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj09UhcqBUiGLqmCSEW3x026fWkvI-WYgu3bR9yH-RUWDoJwosWlyYTpIOyxvTI6mYybnyozIMJD8_s33MYKLgYqmp5MgbhGAG2hkyosIioYU8VWUN2sSpnm4tcjdpi7aylYSHSUCytdXRiL4wH99ALWQ8Z0yPqOy05eZnBPQMlGHkZgt_skHXi/s2000/twiggy%20brambell.png" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1305" data-original-width="2000" height="261" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj09UhcqBUiGLqmCSEW3x026fWkvI-WYgu3bR9yH-RUWDoJwosWlyYTpIOyxvTI6mYybnyozIMJD8_s33MYKLgYqmp5MgbhGAG2hkyosIioYU8VWUN2sSpnm4tcjdpi7aylYSHSUCytdXRiL4wH99ALWQ8Z0yPqOy05eZnBPQMlGHkZgt_skHXi/w400-h261/twiggy%20brambell.png" width="400" /></a></div><br />An alternative reality, in which Swinging London was devised and documented not by Mary Quant and David Bailey and the Beatles, but by Samuel Beckett.<p></p><p><i>(Photo of Twiggy and Wilfrid Brambell by Burt Glinn.)</i></p>Tim Fhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14681067872556519250noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-18775356.post-23759147642115441942024-01-26T13:49:00.004+00:002024-02-19T09:42:59.774+00:00About Barbie and being good<p></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg-R5160TbdGU1g1kD0UdhusHxA5_srIKGojResk36qDAhDl8ZX-o-zT_IDh_JcDWDSW273ej-NROjTP4eJHctsuLwz-P8vIc6ACVhcPq-tYC4tZGrF2rZosG-dhCk68TctIqqKM0AToJgqAMzokcW12uMewRrU0MKrxEETwqsN3Oqt4bmGR_Pe/s325/barbie%20view.jpeg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="155" data-original-width="325" height="191" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg-R5160TbdGU1g1kD0UdhusHxA5_srIKGojResk36qDAhDl8ZX-o-zT_IDh_JcDWDSW273ej-NROjTP4eJHctsuLwz-P8vIc6ACVhcPq-tYC4tZGrF2rZosG-dhCk68TctIqqKM0AToJgqAMzokcW12uMewRrU0MKrxEETwqsN3Oqt4bmGR_Pe/w400-h191/barbie%20view.jpeg" width="400" /></a></div><br />Oh what a brouhaha there is about the lack of love Barbie has received in terms of nominations for the upcoming Oscars. (In short, it got a nod in the Best Picture category, but its female director and female star were less happy. Ryan Gosling, nominated for Best Supporting Actor, <a href="https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/entertainment-arts-68077563">spoke up for his spurned sisters</a> but not to the extent of throwing his own chance away.)<p></p><p>For the record, <a href="https://culturalsnow.blogspot.com/2023/08/about-barbie.html">I enjoyed the movie</a>, especially its design (definitely one that has to be seen on the big screen) although it probably wouldn’t be in any of my best-of lists. Gerwig and Robbie are talented people but they’ve each done better things (Lady Bird and I, Tonya). That’s not what this is about, though, is it? Barbie, beneath the pink gleam, is a satire of sexism and patriarchy and masculinist assumptions and, so the logic goes, to deprive it of recognition is to condone all those bad things. </p><p>Except that it really isn’t, is it? Films that are on the side of the angels aren’t inherently great films and yet the Oscar voters have long had a tendency to reward movies on the basis of their social values alone. The nadir of this came at the 78th awards, when the Best Picture gong went to <a href="https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0375679/">Crash</a>, a movie at once incoherent and simplistic, the script of which is pretty much the song <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=th4FMmNQpAk">‘Everyone’s a Little Bit Racist’</a> stretched over two hours. To add to the fun, it edged out Brokeback Mountain, so even as the Academy patted itself on the back for acknowledging that Racism Is A Bad Thing, it was panicking in case anyone might think it considered homophobia not to be equally reprehensible. Barbie’s relatively slim pickings may be a sign that Hollywood is finally shaking its way out of such ethical quandaries.</p><p>Society as a whole isn’t there yet. Maybe the problem is that at the same time as we have become more confident, even to the point of sanctimony, in our moral and political opinions, we feel less able to make aesthetic judgements, to declare that one film (book, song, play, etc) better than another by virtue of imagination, craft and skill rather than just, well, virtue. To argue on purely artistic grounds that X is a better actor or director or composer or balloon sculptor than Y takes us too close to assumptions about class and education that feel too uncomfortable to express. (Incidentally, we are in similar territory when it comes to language. We are encouraged seize on instances of misgendering or outdated racial epithets, but suggesting that the phrase <i>“would of”</i> is in some way incorrect looks plain rude.)</p><p>It almost feels as if we’ve slipped back to the Victorian era, when finger-wagging critics dismissed the likes of Wuthering Heights and Tess of the d’Urbervilles, not for any inherent literary faults but because they were morally suspect. The specific criteria have changed (racism and misogyny and homophobia rather than fornication) but the priorities would be familiar to Hardy or the Brontës. We know what’s good, but not what’s good.</p><p><b>PS: </b>My old mucker Clair, who used to hang around these parts as the Urban Woo, deals with the matter in characteristically brisk, no-nonsense fashion in <a href="https://www.independent.co.uk/voices/barbie-oscar-nominations-snub-gerwig-robbie-gosling-b2483962.html">The Independent</a>.</p><p><b>PPS: </b>Reductress, as it tends to, also gets it right:</p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjmlHl5UF3YnO1oVnRIToftlJptg-yU6659ZRBMmNKjVkGz-5n5GgJuKrOcPgIUl7UFOSztsVTZcnnxVQ5yGW4RN7roEdYnQErpJlMWCNjP33HTLlzfLiZZMMrig2c5nl0iH1kYpmIIO44t8v8Y7W0mJj9TIRAcx78kw1ipzu9V5GtruWnyT7bB/s581/reductress%20barbie.png" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="514" data-original-width="581" height="354" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjmlHl5UF3YnO1oVnRIToftlJptg-yU6659ZRBMmNKjVkGz-5n5GgJuKrOcPgIUl7UFOSztsVTZcnnxVQ5yGW4RN7roEdYnQErpJlMWCNjP33HTLlzfLiZZMMrig2c5nl0iH1kYpmIIO44t8v8Y7W0mJj9TIRAcx78kw1ipzu9V5GtruWnyT7bB/w400-h354/reductress%20barbie.png" width="400" /></a></div>Tim Fhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14681067872556519250noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-18775356.post-55454450124491785782024-01-23T11:12:00.003+00:002024-01-23T11:12:47.277+00:00About Barthes<p>Stolen from someone. Can’t remember who, which is grimly appropriate, I guess. Not for the first time, I think how much Barthes would have relished social media.</p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh9Y14Ntn1pK_pLfwgPxzKhjcdZUQdTTvBevGCN9xUbO106ddCc_5CcYsvL6GIobX31oECvoq8X7aI01JAn8O632ymsuX4ZPVAoE_lKxzMU2NCZ8-fsAIjEz2XIELaUXAr3qZbYNnRqhSVco5GlIKJQdpHTILm9wapa2A9lA_71_TLrjbdDppIV/s1052/death%20of%20the%20author.jpeg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1052" data-original-width="526" height="640" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh9Y14Ntn1pK_pLfwgPxzKhjcdZUQdTTvBevGCN9xUbO106ddCc_5CcYsvL6GIobX31oECvoq8X7aI01JAn8O632ymsuX4ZPVAoE_lKxzMU2NCZ8-fsAIjEz2XIELaUXAr3qZbYNnRqhSVco5GlIKJQdpHTILm9wapa2A9lA_71_TLrjbdDppIV/w320-h640/death%20of%20the%20author.jpeg" width="320" /></a></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;">Also, from John Lanchester’s <a href="https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/169510.The_Debt_to_Pleasure">The Debt to Pleasure</a>: </div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;"><i><blockquote>Roland Barthes observes somewhere that the meaning of any list of likes and dislikes is to be found in its assertion of the fact that each of us has a body, and that this body is different from everybody else’s. This is tosh. The real meaning of our dislikes is that they define us by separating us from what is outside us; they separate the self from the world that mere banal liking cannot do.</blockquote></i></div>Tim Fhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14681067872556519250noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-18775356.post-56981780632924234042024-01-15T09:53:00.001+00:002024-01-15T09:53:18.688+00:00About Ballard<p>In 1974, <a href="https://prologuewave.club/archives/9143?fbclid=IwAR29WknrXLc_i93iJmH3NEokuFdiLGwXrEaDLaU7p-TmhavwuGxUQenTTGY">JG Ballard gave an interview </a>to an 18-year-old admirer, Akihiko Kokuryo, and offered a message to readers of the speculative fiction magazine in which it was published. Translated into Japanese and then back into English it feels like a pretty good way of coping with the modern world that he predicted so well, so often: </p><p></p><blockquote style="font-style: italic;">I hope that you will always be skeptical, passionate, analytic, revolutionary, idealistic, dream-like, serene and hallucinated.</blockquote><p>And in searching for an image, I find this clipping. We all have those mammoth novels deep inside, don’t we?</p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgghbMin_HjF4NYord1PCpy5hhJ9w5EAmKEh4dLQvH-BMRQwBeut3ty7rLj_s_rzeZ2zRHy1E0OBq5KMrB-RrNfLrAep_w3Xc9CFshbAbPs4S-1-Hgd9Vxv1dHhOYZO6bniT4whkB0rMhdqTY4MXKZIXFou4Vi8V85MD_syG_tIvNg3oBl8dOFC/s465/ballard%20mammoth.jpeg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="381" data-original-width="465" height="328" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgghbMin_HjF4NYord1PCpy5hhJ9w5EAmKEh4dLQvH-BMRQwBeut3ty7rLj_s_rzeZ2zRHy1E0OBq5KMrB-RrNfLrAep_w3Xc9CFshbAbPs4S-1-Hgd9Vxv1dHhOYZO6bniT4whkB0rMhdqTY4MXKZIXFou4Vi8V85MD_syG_tIvNg3oBl8dOFC/w400-h328/ballard%20mammoth.jpeg" width="400" /></a></div><p></p>Tim Fhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14681067872556519250noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-18775356.post-80470819354584316102024-01-11T15:51:00.002+00:002024-02-19T09:44:10.025+00:00About Mean Girls (and mean girls)<p></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh0DJof2ivGRCqemlLLQh2ujobnzxSGHydgckbFNTR7kdMDUDa5Hu-ovuCzW6HKNZoSMvoyuDG8x50WZychOEVSdh9YF8WmVHeHE_NFkGOlzlMLHjOG6Om5A75QnRFPUGWJQ6m06rL2Kx7QOcuJ9y4iJByyf-i8lydSrmZrfH5LpV5gp9yNUx0j/s1456/MEANGIRLS_ONLINE_TEASER2_1SHT_MONTAGE.jpeg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1092" data-original-width="1456" height="300" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh0DJof2ivGRCqemlLLQh2ujobnzxSGHydgckbFNTR7kdMDUDa5Hu-ovuCzW6HKNZoSMvoyuDG8x50WZychOEVSdh9YF8WmVHeHE_NFkGOlzlMLHjOG6Om5A75QnRFPUGWJQ6m06rL2Kx7QOcuJ9y4iJByyf-i8lydSrmZrfH5LpV5gp9yNUx0j/w400-h300/MEANGIRLS_ONLINE_TEASER2_1SHT_MONTAGE.jpeg" width="400" /></a></div><br />The new movie <a href="https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/entertainment-arts-67943913">Mean Girls</a> (which is in fact the film version of the stage musical of the old movie <a href="https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0377092/">Mean Girls</a>) would appear to have been stripped of its, well, meanness. <p></p><p><i>“If we really had people speak to each other the way they spoke to each other in 1990, everyone would go to the hospital,”</i> says screenwriter Tina Fey, although whether she means it would provoke actual fisticuffs, or that Gen Z-ers are so fragile that verbal hostility might provoke a full-on breakdown, isn’t so clear. But then she seizes on what’s really changed, and what hasn’t: <i>“People are still horrible, they're just more likely to anonymously type it. I would like to take but not teach a graduate school class on the ways in which people are just as divisive and horrible as they ever were, but now they couch it in virtue.”</i> In other words, people are still reassuringly vile but maybe not in a way that transfers so easily to celluloid.</p><p>But it’s not just nastiness we need to be warned about. For a <a href="https://www.stratfordeast.com/your-visit/content-advisory-notes/">forthcoming show at Stratford East,</a> we are alerted to <i>“themes of joy, loss and grief”</i>. I wonder whether you can experience so much joy it puts you in the hospital.</p>Tim Fhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14681067872556519250noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-18775356.post-85180359799149243712024-01-07T22:55:00.001+00:002024-01-07T22:57:29.706+00:00About Theseus<p>The Ship of Theseus, aka <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=56yN2zHtofM">Trigger’s Broom</a>, isn’t quite the same thing as Baudrillard’s <a href="https://www.cla.purdue.edu/academic/english/theory/postmodernism/terms/simulacrum.html">simulacrum</a>, but it <a href="http://jordiebowen.weebly.com/design-for-simulation/simulacrum-and-the-ship-of-theseus">occupies a similar space</a>. And it does emit some lovely memeage.</p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj-2d_N4WcKv6ysNSkqS9DSHyELHuWi-VgME1ysJPupOE9h4nedOh8-zbQd0ugs1YEtNVMEnxWzXwN4m-hmMuBEylp8jj_vUkoLvwde4phXUI6AZqWIaL6_Ip2BQAdMk2Ds8cNwHGDfxd6zs_mZ6xxhTRQzRaOzYltDBfr8SAdp1w5NI7ZseRIM/s737/theseus.jpeg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="473" data-original-width="737" height="256" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj-2d_N4WcKv6ysNSkqS9DSHyELHuWi-VgME1ysJPupOE9h4nedOh8-zbQd0ugs1YEtNVMEnxWzXwN4m-hmMuBEylp8jj_vUkoLvwde4phXUI6AZqWIaL6_Ip2BQAdMk2Ds8cNwHGDfxd6zs_mZ6xxhTRQzRaOzYltDBfr8SAdp1w5NI7ZseRIM/w400-h256/theseus.jpeg" width="400" /></a></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgzvVTHwDjsOqXIGAdAwXXYfhdPtmktzjMwvD3a_Z1lmUp3ngzguUbuYQkRqVw7IyqffIWXVx3Glp1mwveVK4pAd_0rYMCeJloUQMUZz3cnTAkTWbw1puUirNd4utuj0hRnMkc0y0hyphenhyphene3tGlh9nxzJhZvvgduXiKMLHccZDpKJ2iQZPQamE1sI_/s1000/ship%20of%20theseus.jpeg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1000" data-original-width="769" height="400" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgzvVTHwDjsOqXIGAdAwXXYfhdPtmktzjMwvD3a_Z1lmUp3ngzguUbuYQkRqVw7IyqffIWXVx3Glp1mwveVK4pAd_0rYMCeJloUQMUZz3cnTAkTWbw1puUirNd4utuj0hRnMkc0y0hyphenhyphene3tGlh9nxzJhZvvgduXiKMLHccZDpKJ2iQZPQamE1sI_/w308-h400/ship%20of%20theseus.jpeg" width="308" /></a></div><p></p>Tim Fhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14681067872556519250noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-18775356.post-30115595922504503542023-12-31T19:43:00.000+00:002023-12-31T19:43:04.967+00:00About Scottish football<p>For no particular reason other than that tonight is a time to pretend to be Scottish, a selection of the names of lower league football teams. Poetry of sorts, ya wee radges. Have a bearable one. </p><p><i>Strathspey Thistle</i></p><p><i>Civil Service Strollers </i></p><p><i>Gala Fairydean Rovers </i></p><p><i>Carnoustie Panmure </i></p><p><i>Dundee Violet </i></p><p><i>Lochee Harp </i></p><p><i>Golspie Sutherland </i></p><p><i>Banchory St Ternan </i></p><p><i>Montrose Roselea </i></p><p><i>Nairn St Ninian </i></p><p><i>Stoneywood Parkvale </i></p><p><i>Crossgates Primrose </i></p><p><i>Dundonald Bluebell </i></p><p><i>Inverkeithing Hillfield Swifts </i></p><p><i>Auchinleck Talbot </i></p><p><i>Kirkintilloch Rob Roy</i></p><p></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhoQTZnAnBGSnE_-AH7n691CYWMQR2I3pU0eEcMLrNItRbEE4ido1k84aTDo6BijSrr2ELlF7ju7RtyC4p6xfp8Efj_rgNCX4-uBllCiExOP_8t0Bc8ibhd4Ve7a3vaZn0HZnrBq5ETQWXSuYO-cjHQG3Iamu9rGrWhmX7wJJ6ogF630Qzhvjvi/s615/scottish%20fan.jpeg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="409" data-original-width="615" height="266" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhoQTZnAnBGSnE_-AH7n691CYWMQR2I3pU0eEcMLrNItRbEE4ido1k84aTDo6BijSrr2ELlF7ju7RtyC4p6xfp8Efj_rgNCX4-uBllCiExOP_8t0Bc8ibhd4Ve7a3vaZn0HZnrBq5ETQWXSuYO-cjHQG3Iamu9rGrWhmX7wJJ6ogF630Qzhvjvi/w400-h266/scottish%20fan.jpeg" width="400" /></a></div><p></p>Tim Fhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14681067872556519250noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-18775356.post-76959788724760168162023-12-27T14:23:00.001+00:002024-01-07T22:58:26.639+00:00About adaptation<p></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgt_BFpQUsuNDkBNFJeT4hqxUd-xhO9l7U3hZtwCgTiLSZXMoqj3W5UGyht2lm6vBYCs9SJzteD7dPhumJbQDvoTPnpsiiFJRkIU3cRg1AUQG_crq3YeIP2yGlPYtYJ5IK0ff_Mq-GZwLXXMVSzLyv1RuWSRYKz3hyphenhyphenbBOhCnLpLN6twZrqGTTjf/s618/jonsson.jpeg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="443" data-original-width="618" height="286" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgt_BFpQUsuNDkBNFJeT4hqxUd-xhO9l7U3hZtwCgTiLSZXMoqj3W5UGyht2lm6vBYCs9SJzteD7dPhumJbQDvoTPnpsiiFJRkIU3cRg1AUQG_crq3YeIP2yGlPYtYJ5IK0ff_Mq-GZwLXXMVSzLyv1RuWSRYKz3hyphenhyphenbBOhCnLpLN6twZrqGTTjf/w400-h286/jonsson.jpeg" width="400" /></a></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;">By <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/books/2023/dec/26/feminism-folk-horror-and-an-outsider-hero-how-i-brought-agatha-christies-is-easy-to-the-small-screen">Siân Ejwunmi-Le Berre</a>, whose TV adaptation of Agatha Christie’s Murder is Easy starts tonight, and will probably annoy a) people who’ve read it and have a particular idea in their heads of how it should be be, which is fair enough, and b) people who haven’t read it but aargh, there’s a black man in it.</div><p></p><p><i></i></p><blockquote><i>I’ve come to think of adaptation as a conversation between two writers, colliding at a specific moment in time like strangers at a dinner party... But the scriptwriter shouldn’t dive too deeply into the author’s opinions and beliefs – it’s a party after all, not an interrogation. Adaptation is not some kind of biography. How rude would that be? Like Googling your fellow guests under the dinner table... As an adaptor, there’s no need to become an expert in the writer behind The Book. I take them at their word, in the moment of writing, as expressed on the page alone. Their past, their future, are none of my concern.</i></blockquote><p><b>PS: </b>Unfortunately, it wasn’t very good. </p><p></p>Tim Fhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14681067872556519250noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-18775356.post-87396509459832006322023-12-23T12:27:00.003+00:002024-01-07T23:00:20.706+00:00About Christmas books<p></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg_HaHyWYIhIx-Yc80JqkMXJJ-LWvYvrCygQXKLI-oUc_BAlgiq_fUR4Uo02wn2uteGtzrcqcro-OwHGYj6vOc22o7ZTlHGY7Os9VgDbqiZxW5_QFN2cWKd5MxOgJD-SsLyu_woTpOVDxVBrNu7E-knqSfNijREi6S9Z3Ri2tyVU89j6tS8TR6j/s2000/gauld%20xmas%20books.png" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1168" data-original-width="2000" height="234" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg_HaHyWYIhIx-Yc80JqkMXJJ-LWvYvrCygQXKLI-oUc_BAlgiq_fUR4Uo02wn2uteGtzrcqcro-OwHGYj6vOc22o7ZTlHGY7Os9VgDbqiZxW5_QFN2cWKd5MxOgJD-SsLyu_woTpOVDxVBrNu7E-knqSfNijREi6S9Z3Ri2tyVU89j6tS8TR6j/w400-h234/gauld%20xmas%20books.png" width="400" /></a></div><br />When I was in primary school, the first Friday afternoon after the Christmas holidays was a toy day, in which each of us was permitted to bring one thing we’d received from Santa and enjoy it with our friends and/or enemies. (It was a couple of years before I realised that the kids who regularly went down with diplomatic illnesses on these days were also the kids with holes in their shoes; I suspect these festivals of conspicuous consumption wouldn’t be permitted now.)<p>I wasn’t one of the deprived kids although I was at a slight disadvantage in that most of the things I wanted, and got, at Christmas were books. So while everyone else was mucking around with Buckaroo or Sindy or <a href="https://www.evelknieveltoys.com/products/copy-of-international-evel-knievel-stunt-cycle-black-2">that wind-up Evel Knievel thing</a>, I just sat and pored over some new tome about dinosaurs or pirates or cowboys or flags or clowns or Greek myths, or maybe the latest Raymond Briggs, or something Doctor Who-related. It wasn’t clear how I could adapt this to a shared activity, unless someone else was prepared to have me read to them. There was no hostility from my classmates as far as I recall; I just did my thing.</p><p>Fast-forward. Christmas as an event means even less to me now than it did when I was eight, and if I want a book I’ll usually buy it myself (although whether I read it is another matter; I’m the poster boy for <a href="https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-44981013">tsundoku</a>) but it still gives an unexpected pleasure to give or receive a book, the transaction being based around that very special feeling (do the Japanese have a word for it?), not of <i>“I needed to buy you something because it’s December”</i> but rather <i>“I saw this and thought of you”</i>. Which, as we ease into an ever more digital future of downloads on demand, gets rather lost. An unfortunate victim of progress or a conscious decision by those who stand to profit from a pervasive intellectual dullness and absence of curiosity? As one user of BlueSky (where we are unless or until Twitter lances its own boils) puts it:</p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiXJGdIsndkAIGrEkKsODaWWFAXdtYjaej-dovmeBi5-MAszPMIg9FouyLlrW2b7iWwhHT89xCbXA1FWs0tf6NnIgV4DMLfaEHdD5WLbASIE5swHcRpn6LxsQEH1izXZ0NIvHDewRk-bTqv4xUAYegfYuw1BIQGULqTr_3FDPCNadL2QNHoPGHb/s789/bored%20with%20books.png" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="556" data-original-width="789" height="283" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiXJGdIsndkAIGrEkKsODaWWFAXdtYjaej-dovmeBi5-MAszPMIg9FouyLlrW2b7iWwhHT89xCbXA1FWs0tf6NnIgV4DMLfaEHdD5WLbASIE5swHcRpn6LxsQEH1izXZ0NIvHDewRk-bTqv4xUAYegfYuw1BIQGULqTr_3FDPCNadL2QNHoPGHb/w400-h283/bored%20with%20books.png" width="400" /></a></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;"><i>(Pic by Tom Gauld)</i></div><p></p>Tim Fhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14681067872556519250noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-18775356.post-80178705164175007722023-12-15T12:51:00.003+00:002023-12-15T12:51:53.344+00:00About reading<p>A study at the University of Valencia has cheered up grumpy Luddites everywhere by concluding that <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/books/2023/dec/15/reading-print-improves-comprehension-far-more-than-looking-at-digital-text-say-researchers">reading printed texts improves comprehension more than reading digital matter does</a>. But they’re not entirely sure why. One theory is that the <i>“linguistic quality of digital texts tends to be lower than that traditionally found in printed texts.”</i> In other words, to mangle <a href="https://web.mit.edu/allanmc/www/mcluhan.mediummessage.pdf">McLuhan</a>, it may be about the message rather than the medium; if I print out this blog post, it doesn’t miraculously get better. Or, as techies have asserted since the days of <a href="https://www.computerhistory.org/babbage/charlesbabbage/">Babbage</a>, garbage in, garbage out.</p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgcOoxCZ6R2Yc6VEwlMbSAGTEhlGkbcvY9NaJw0kCRXUVbhqXyN_UXb23jJhRb8mNbkX0AJczUr1DPZmS5PsKQc31pXG3B1lrUpbZC_bGA9yWl8sssJcrdOJ6p-lXUPnxtjIbZ2Z1r4S2wej8Ki9jDQ7Ia6NfWKZOWJU0XaGL4EKNr4uSdhs3oY/s2048/shakespeare%20and%20co.jpeg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1365" data-original-width="2048" height="266" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgcOoxCZ6R2Yc6VEwlMbSAGTEhlGkbcvY9NaJw0kCRXUVbhqXyN_UXb23jJhRb8mNbkX0AJczUr1DPZmS5PsKQc31pXG3B1lrUpbZC_bGA9yWl8sssJcrdOJ6p-lXUPnxtjIbZ2Z1r4S2wej8Ki9jDQ7Ia6NfWKZOWJU0XaGL4EKNr4uSdhs3oY/w400-h266/shakespeare%20and%20co.jpeg" width="400" /></a></div>Tim Fhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14681067872556519250noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-18775356.post-4850418968008015682023-12-12T08:33:00.002+00:002023-12-13T09:56:01.542+00:00About bloody cheek<p>I found this plea for financial assistance on a website that includes the full text of <a href="https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/302574.Radiohead">my book about Radiohead</a>. I wonder how much they’re planning to pay me.</p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiF3uH4I_RMRA2W8DjvGoy1Npdk1i2tYpd5c76SR2RHJF8xK1kOCbmv5tps5nAVJhFVqpGcFyyHnhP8RrOyCrDbKtMkGbjSkEelZngifRbznRCiI6alHtW0rfG8O8Xs_PuzJRv7ckkoeeaVRKywVNd60duiYg7ZEtMioVEC5Xt2NLJ-kUhai6LO/s699/chip%20in.png" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="542" data-original-width="699" height="310" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiF3uH4I_RMRA2W8DjvGoy1Npdk1i2tYpd5c76SR2RHJF8xK1kOCbmv5tps5nAVJhFVqpGcFyyHnhP8RrOyCrDbKtMkGbjSkEelZngifRbznRCiI6alHtW0rfG8O8Xs_PuzJRv7ckkoeeaVRKywVNd60duiYg7ZEtMioVEC5Xt2NLJ-kUhai6LO/w400-h310/chip%20in.png" width="400" /></a></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;"><b>PS: </b>Received an email from one Miles Wihrt (don’t know if he has any connection with Internet Archive), who asked:</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;"><i><blockquote>Are you actually hurt about internet archive, or just blogging to blog?</blockquote></i></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;">To which I responded:</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;"><i></i></div><blockquote><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;"><i>Hi Miles, </i></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;"><i>Not hurt, just pointing out what I see as a paradox.</i></div><div><i>In 2007, I wrote a book. Back then, if people wanted to read it, they bought a copy and, in theory, some of the money made its way back to me. </i></div><div><i>Now, I understand how notions of copyright and ownership have been upended since then, and I get that some people feel entitled to read and watch and hear content for free, so they have no qualms about going to Internet Archive and downloading it. Obviously, none of the money makes its way back to me. What does niggle just a little is that, presumably, some other people do feel some kind of obligation to pay money for this privilege; they just won't pay that money to the people who wrote or published the book in the first place.</i></div><div><i>And in answer to your question, yes, I do blog to blog. But my baby just loves to dance.</i></div></blockquote><div><i></i></div>Tim Fhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14681067872556519250noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-18775356.post-73340888226616093772023-12-11T10:16:00.002+00:002023-12-11T21:06:03.063+00:00About stupidity<p>Searching for something else that I’ve now forgotten, I found <a href="http://culturalsnow.blogspot.com/2007/03/dumb-and-then-some.html">something I wrote in 2007</a>, responding to a very reasonable and polite suggestion that in this blog I was being a bit harsh to people who don’t read much and don’t know a lot about politics and philosophy and the like. And I’d probably tweak the phrasing today, but the sentiment still holds up after – bloody hell – getting on for 17 years:</p><p></p><blockquote style="font-style: italic;">Yes, it may be tiresome, even impolite to point out that some people are dim, but if we don't do it, we'll eventually lose the ability to discriminate between what is stupid and what isn't. And that matters.</blockquote><p>I guess it’s the distinction between the <i>“what”</i> and the <i>“who” </i>that matters here.<i> </i>But maintain that we do need to call out the <i>“what”</i>, even if some of the <i>“who” </i>get caught up in the fracas.</p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjZllDqUbQk1wPPAVFwYzWDJ9Q3dSW2oYTCfpjVy9p7e8h9EkFhzAN3SRbv9Zu10yFVS_y03k9y54hRVe4yso9jTLlidfn65BpUh4BG-SK7vdPkQuIs275ukHnPPIb48WEUcfPLN5zDT12QMQd5hyphenhyphenB8zT7TiodUYAPRlei8P_L_NLFmwmPAYHT1/s1200/itsgotelectrolytes.jpeg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="495" data-original-width="1200" height="165" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjZllDqUbQk1wPPAVFwYzWDJ9Q3dSW2oYTCfpjVy9p7e8h9EkFhzAN3SRbv9Zu10yFVS_y03k9y54hRVe4yso9jTLlidfn65BpUh4BG-SK7vdPkQuIs275ukHnPPIb48WEUcfPLN5zDT12QMQd5hyphenhyphenB8zT7TiodUYAPRlei8P_L_NLFmwmPAYHT1/w400-h165/itsgotelectrolytes.jpeg" width="400" /></a></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;"><b>PS: </b>On similar-ish lines, someone put this up on <a href="https://bsky.app/profile/culturalsnow.bsky.social">BlueSky</a>, to which I’ve slunk off because Elon Musk’s a colossal arse. From Neil Postman’s Technopoly:</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;"><i><blockquote>...every teacher must be a history teacher. To teach, for example, what we know about biology today without also teaching what we once knew, or thought we knew, is to reduce knowledge to a mere consumer product. It is to deprive students of the sense of the meaning of what we know, and of how we know.</blockquote></i></div><p></p>Tim Fhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14681067872556519250noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-18775356.post-44565526928324576862023-12-03T13:27:00.002+00:002023-12-03T13:27:20.887+00:00About Wrapped<p>The years when your musical tastes truly mattered to your identity are long gone, we are constantly told. The younglings no longer define as metalheads or b-boys or goths or disco queens or indie shambles; they just leave themselves at the mercies of the blessed algorithm and let the music play, a title that only comes to mind because I heard Radcliffe and Maconie play it yesterday on their 6Music show, which shows how old I am, doesn’t it?</p><p>And yet... and yet. The continued success of Spotify’s annual <a href="https://www.forbes.com/sites/conormurray/2023/11/28/spotify-wrapped-2023-comes-soon-heres-how-it-became-a-viral-and-widely-copied-marketing-tactic/">Wrapped</a>, which gives users a handy summary of their listening habits over the past year and – this is the important bit – encourages them to share it with everyone else, suggests that people think the things they listen to do actually matter, do actually express something about the listener, even if they happen accidentally. To this extent:</p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgqSIKKi4bAc81TXTlHOomji60avmJxHbC2ncT1qd5ZFETzsPiNkwwPcm9c1tf7hEq7mH4e2zsvXV6Yur-NYOEC33f-dtV3aUSF2SUNV-7JUuW4DGqm5-17TDmu3OG1s-xZy9v8XV12EpBZ36DenfaaNO0UmJ9tX9MEpGHZ7odI2nbesTRAks9z/s529/vinyl%20wrapped.png" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="478" data-original-width="529" height="361" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgqSIKKi4bAc81TXTlHOomji60avmJxHbC2ncT1qd5ZFETzsPiNkwwPcm9c1tf7hEq7mH4e2zsvXV6Yur-NYOEC33f-dtV3aUSF2SUNV-7JUuW4DGqm5-17TDmu3OG1s-xZy9v8XV12EpBZ36DenfaaNO0UmJ9tX9MEpGHZ7odI2nbesTRAks9z/w400-h361/vinyl%20wrapped.png" width="400" /></a></div>Tim Fhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14681067872556519250noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-18775356.post-75699606421236148142023-11-30T07:20:00.005+00:002023-11-30T07:25:52.412+00:00About Kissinger<p>Rolling Stone, for the first time in many decades, nails it.</p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiSWMINvvS8tUakrpdYwTwvxzwQxIJRw8Ndnn3pIxrMOxyXLmc6z6LpvDlYyjnpM7oZ0JVqM3G7VohWmNvDpL2BC-2RSalWE_wtXDOwtcsYz46_U9MJOsgTqCcDoafvt0PsYCh1yKesw3Q1BD_Evm5L5cE-oTRRZY92mBagQRO_vBbXh5b4XpnD/s701/rs%20kissinger.png" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="396" data-original-width="701" height="226" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiSWMINvvS8tUakrpdYwTwvxzwQxIJRw8Ndnn3pIxrMOxyXLmc6z6LpvDlYyjnpM7oZ0JVqM3G7VohWmNvDpL2BC-2RSalWE_wtXDOwtcsYz46_U9MJOsgTqCcDoafvt0PsYCh1yKesw3Q1BD_Evm5L5cE-oTRRZY92mBagQRO_vBbXh5b4XpnD/w400-h226/rs%20kissinger.png" width="400" /></a></div><p>And we have to return to <a href="https://slate.com/news-and-politics/2018/06/anthony-bourdain-really-really-hated-henry-kissinger.html">Anthony Bourdain</a>’s summation of the man:</p><p></p><blockquote><i>Once you’ve been to Cambodia, you’ll never stop wanting to beat Henry Kissinger to death with your bare hands. You will never again be able to open a newspaper and read about that treacherous, prevaricating, murderous scumbag sitting down for a nice chat with Charlie Rose or attending some black-tie affair for a new glossy magazine without choking. Witness what Henry did in Cambodia – the fruits of his genius for statesmanship – and you will never understand why he’s not sitting in the dock at The Hague next to Milošević.</i></blockquote><p></p><p>Sadly, Bourdain didn’t live to dance on Kissinger’s grave and nor did <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ant6tY-MOIk">Christopher Hitchens</a>. But we still have Tom Lehrer who may or may not have said that he stopped writing songs because <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/culture/2000/jul/31/artsfeatures1">satire died when Kissinger won the Nobel Peace Prize</a>. So that’s OK.</p><p><b>PS: </b>Also, this:</p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhfyGwgSUYzJGciFrzpkmhGKqqVrTOxIvwiPY5PllewzoocO5O4IHBbwYg8-OOG6AxNVwyXIen_GNlRstpHR-CXeE74EUDgZxePdZT3rKlIrTOPxcoPELJviXHY7BZEM-yviJPPL0UJR12gyjSYNfawJiPNwx0BES5ZFX-rFQmr6MZw8_buUcpn/s2000/kissinger%20wiki.jpeg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1435" data-original-width="2000" height="288" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhfyGwgSUYzJGciFrzpkmhGKqqVrTOxIvwiPY5PllewzoocO5O4IHBbwYg8-OOG6AxNVwyXIen_GNlRstpHR-CXeE74EUDgZxePdZT3rKlIrTOPxcoPELJviXHY7BZEM-yviJPPL0UJR12gyjSYNfawJiPNwx0BES5ZFX-rFQmr6MZw8_buUcpn/w400-h288/kissinger%20wiki.jpeg" width="400" /></a></div>Tim Fhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14681067872556519250noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-18775356.post-68600057575821947572023-11-23T11:23:00.002+00:002023-11-23T11:23:00.134+00:00About Half Man Half Biscuit<p>I’m afraid I’ve rather lost track of the career of those fine Birkenhead troubadors Half Man Half Biscuit, so I wasn't aware that while I was working on my dissertation (see posts passim) they released a song that would have fitted in quite nicely: </p><p><i></i></p><blockquote><i>Born too late for the First World War<br />Siege of Troy was long before my time<br />Naseby, Jutland, Agincourt <br />Characters perhaps from pantomime...
<br />I don’t watch films in black and white
<br />The trees and flowers and birds have passed me by
<br />I’ll just guess and hope I’m right
<br />The first man into space was Captain Bligh...</i></blockquote><p></p>
<iframe allow="accelerometer; autoplay; clipboard-write; encrypted-media; gyroscope; picture-in-picture; web-share" allowfullscreen="" frameborder="0" height="315" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/5tWSZxoi8ZU?si=EbX_l9Q_JJTLxuRa" title="YouTube video player" width="560"></iframe>Tim Fhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14681067872556519250noreply@blogger.com0