20th Century
From Then To Now
Late autumn 1962 was good to culture. The first James Bond film opened in London on 5 October. The French New Wave was at its height with the release of Cléo de 5 à 7 [more…]
Movies
20th Century
A History of Pop Music – Albums 1972
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rfrOlB6pXNI Featured Album: David Bowie – The Rise And Fall Of Ziggy Stardust And The Spiders From Mars This is a series of articles looking at albums from 1960 to whatever year we end up [more…]
Arts
A Dazzlingly Ferocious Crime Film : Sexy Beast (2000)
Michael Caine was once quoted as saying he appeared in the gritty crime film “Get Carter”as an antithesis to the jokey caper “The Italian Job”. But to sufficiently compare Get Carter and Sexy Beast, one has to first understand the [more…]
Arts
From Tangible to Digital: The Shift from Physical to Virtual Media
In the past few decades, we’ve witnessed a profound transformation in how we create, share, and preserve our memories and communications. The digital revolution has reshaped the landscape of human expression, moving us from the [more…]
20th Century
On this day – 30th September 1955
Do famous people who die before their time have a disproportionate impact on popular culture ? This theory is certainly borne out by the resonance that James Dean has had in the decades since his [more…]
Arts
Star Trek Continues – Web Series Review, Part 1
I have fond memories of sitting on the sofa next to my dad in the mid-1970s watching Star Trek on BBC 1 on a Saturday evening. I would have been about 6 or 7 at [more…]
Literature
The cult of victimhood
It has recently emerged that Raynor Winn (NHRN), whose trip with her husband Moth (also NHRN) along the SW Coastal Path inspired her book ‘The Salt Path’ (followed by the film of the same name [more…]
Arts
Digitising Old Cine Films
Having modernised and saved the old family photos and audio recordings for ‘posterity’ by converting them to digital format, attention turned to the family cine films, shot in the 1960s and early 1970s: 24 reels [more…]
21st Century
A View From The Greenhouse; Reflections
As expected (once DJT got his feet back under the table), it became more than a possibility that the war in Ukraine could be brought to a conclusion of sorts. It may not bring the [more…]