At the 19th National Congress of the Communist Party of China, President Xi Jingping delivered a speech that lasted for 3 hours and 23 minutes. In it he set out his ‘China Dream’. It was time, he said, for his nation to transform itself into ‘a mighty force’ that could lead the world on political, […]
The Last Refuge in the Age of Technology
History will be accessed by those who still read, those who let words on a touched page dance in their head.
Who owns the Dark Agenda?
Now that we’re all visible and connected who’s manipulating who?
To The City & The City for the love of an idea: the unseen paradox
Miéville’s novel as a door to aporetic space.
The agenda that dare not speak its name
Life in the interregnum years.
Simon Jay’s Anti-National Portrait Gallery
When an artist/writer/performer meets that breaking point…
If uncertainty is today’s central narrative are we commuting straight into the abyss?
Profound uncertainy and the abyssal commute.
Normies under siege: eyes wide open in A Clockwork Orange sunset
There are new Droogs on the block and they’re taking no prisoners
Over! Over! The insights of the unutterable, and why we’ll miss Mark E Smith
He was not appreciated
Booming for the real: how Banksy saved Basquiat from the Barbican
Magpie culture and the freedom to be.
A 21st century educational dystopia
Amidst the financial meltdown of the United Kingdom and its political chaos – the two may well be linked – the parlous state of education in the UK may seem a lesser problem. But are we not falling behind much of the rest of the world because of the way our education system, much like […]
Thoughts About The Future On The Eve Of The 2017 General Election
We are now on the eve of one of the most discussed and fractious elections in the last fifty years. We have a leader of the main opposition whose own party was trying to hound him out just four months ago . The sections of the electorate most likely to respond to the new ideological […]
The Argument For Responsibility, Optimism And Creative Resistance In The New Twilight Zone
A message to the creative community. Seems like the Left got lazy. As liberalism got liberally spread through societal channels the accepted ‘norm’ shifted and gave us gay marriage, trans-rights, paralympian role models and a host of other progressive symbols that conservatives of all persuasions would previously have laughed off the table. The western world […]
Farewell 2016, and all that
2016. For a year that began with the death of David Bowie and ended with the election of Donald Trump to the White House the rabbit hole has truly opened. Some might say that the events of 2016 have answered questions that were posed by the darkness of events in 2001, others that questions for […]
Technology for the Hard of Believing – the 60s in the 21st Century
Throughout the ages mankind has had to cope with change. New rules, new laws, new discoveries. New faiths. New ideas. In more recent history there has been foreign travel, with its accompanying new foods and new materials. The arrival of train travel broadened horizons. The industrial revolution made massive changes to the lives of working […]
The future of politics in the age of Trump, Brexit and delusional beliefs
It started with Michael Gove, a T shirt and the New Scientist…
‘High Rise’ film review—surreal, violent, decadent. But is it Ballardian?
The Dystopian Interview: Noam Chomsky at Boston MIT
Noam Chomsky interview.
Read a partial transcript and watch the film of our meeting with the linguist and social critic →
The approaching Trumpageddon: Simon Jay at the Edinburgh Fringe
Donald Trump could be elected the most powerful man in the world… so laugh yourself to Trumpageddon. Simon Jay at the Edinburgh Fringe →
