The half-year in music: Jan-June 2020
In January of each year since 2015, I have started a new Spotify playlist. Over the course of the year, I add to it. This is 2020 in my listening so far.… Read More The half-year in music: Jan-June 2020
Category: Comment
Lockhart
Final Fantasy VII, the greatest narrative videogame ever released, with a startlingly radical climate-change message, has been remade. This review assesses the remake in terms of the increased centrality of one character, Tifa Lockhart.… Read More Lockhart
New article: “The Song of a Poet: Leonard Cohen, Bob Dylan and the Boundaries of Literature”
Hi all, Just checking in to let any R2R subscribers know that I’ve got a new piece of writing up at Inciting Sparks, a University of Edinburgh postgrad blog platform. It’s about Cohen and Dylan, and it’s about having a sniffy, protective attitude towards what counts as literature (and, by implication, as art). It’s about… Read More New article: “The Song of a Poet: Leonard Cohen, Bob Dylan and the Boundaries of Literature”
You Can’t Efface the Hate: Orlando and Jo Cox and ‘tough questions’
It has been a terrible week-and-a-half, and everybody knows that we must now ask ourselves tough questions. After the massacre in Orlando, and after the murder of Jo Cox, everyone knows, everyone keeps saying that we must ask ourselves tough questions: about guns and violence and the holding of intolerant beliefs. However it seems to… Read More You Can’t Efface the Hate: Orlando and Jo Cox and ‘tough questions’
Žižek and the Morning After
“I am ready to sell my mother into slavery to see V for Vendetta part 2!” said Žižek. “What happens AFTER the populist ecstatic movement takes over from the élite?”… Read More Žižek and the Morning After
Let the Wolf Live Undersea
Huge and glossy, the seal alternates a few minutes under the water, nosing around at the base of the harbour wall, with a few seconds taking the air. The gulls don’t like it and they flock to a safer distance. One militant gull tries to dive-bomb the seal beak-first. It doesn’t seem perturbed.… Read More Let the Wolf Live Undersea
A Haze of Toxic Springtime
I awoke on Friday to clouds of sediment choking the riverlungs of London. To a low pall of unbreathable air.… Read More A Haze of Toxic Springtime
A(nother) year in (more) books: 3 best, and a couple of worst
To start a tradition, do something twice. Last year I posted a retrospective of a year in fifty-two books. Last year, displaying stalwart consistency, I once again read exactly fifty-two books. (The average UK male life expectancy is 79. It would appear I have 2808 books still to read. Which seems an excellent reason to never… Read More A(nother) year in (more) books: 3 best, and a couple of worst
The Martian: Review
A disclaimer: this is a review in the fullest sense. It sets out my opinions of the 2015 movie The Martian, directed by Ridley Scott. It describes plot events from that film (although spoils much less than the film’s official trailer). If you want to know whether I recommend The Martian: yes, I do.… Read More The Martian: Review
Waiting for Godot at the Edinburgh Lyceum
The more things stay the same, the more significant a minor change becomes. The bareness of Samuel Beckett’s Waiting for Godot – both in terms of its minimal scenery and unfleshy script – and the rigid adherence to that script demanded by the Beckett estate mean that any production becomes most notable for its deviations from the default ur-Godot which one visualises when reading the play on the page.… Read More Waiting for Godot at the Edinburgh Lyceum
Reasons to Remain 