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I watched The Chain (1984). Written by Jack Rosenthal, this jolly little British film is a comedy about house moving in 1 day in London. The opening credits show us the city’s skyline, just before the Docklands developments and also Canary Wharf and the great 80s/90s monstrosities were constructed. Warren Mitchell is Bamber, the gaffer […]

Fliptalk

I watched The System (1964). Two lads are dropped off at a station and rush to get on the next train to a coastal town. They put on posh voices to be sarcastic to the ticket inspector and then set about ogling all the young women on board, as the groovy pop title music kicks […]

International Jet Set

I watched Man Of The World, which ran for 20 episodes in 1962-3. The title sequence shows us the world through the eyes of its central character: internationally-renowned photographer Michael Strait, travelling the world and taking pictures. These ones are from the pilot episode, the only one available in colour: Zoom in to and through […]

Tears In The Typing Pool

I’ve been listening to the new releases of old material by Broadcast. This includes a wider release for the Microtronics mini-albums that were sold at gigs on the 2003 tour, and the Mother Is The Milky Way album from the 2009 tour. There is also the BBC Broadcast Maida Vale Sessions with recordings from 1996-2003. […]

Tool Being

I listened on-line to the lecture about Flawed Humans by Martina Heßler. At the start it was explained that this was work-in-progress toward a new book about the topic of humans and machines. She started with a look at some claims made in current media about the advance of technology. Propositions about autonomous driving vehicles, […]

Yesterday Was The Future

I’ve been listening to the superb new album Becoming Undone by Adult. and it shows once again what absolutely smashing chaps they are. As usual with their releases (this is their 10th album since 1998), the cover image on the CD doesn’t show Nicola Kuperus and Adam Lee Miller. If they did appear on the […]

Sequence Of The Sign

I went to the Estorick Collection in Canonbury Square to see the exhibition Bice Lazzari: Modernist Pioneer. Bice is in the 2 downstairs galleries. The pictures at the top are images of her from the 1920s to 1981. She worked in several different materials. I wondered if the circular design of “Soundtracks” is alluding to […]

At The Still Point

I watched Here Before, a film made in 2020 now available on streaming after a limited number of cinema screenings. It is set in County Antrim within the last few years. There are no references to the pandemic; I think the date would be 2017-8 based on some incidental details but that is not important. […]

The Common Reader

I’ve been reading No One Round Here Reads Tolstoy by Mark Hodkinson. The book is a memoir of Hodkinson’s life as someone determined to make his way in to a career as a “writer” starting from a background marking him as an outsider. It includes his reflections on British literary culture and the media industries […]