New thread : TV tips

As much as writing about interesting programmes afterwards, for anyone interested in the topics  I am, then it might be just as useful to have some tips about upcoming programmes of interest. So every Monday I’m going to try and post a list of what I think are the best TV tips for the next week.

These will be the things I’ll be putting into my DVR for the week, but whether I’ll ever get around to watching them is another thing. That said, my digital database is already crammed full of unwatched programmes, so I currently am trying to limit myself (and my recommendations) to things I really think I should, if not will, watch.

Note, all times are UK broadcast times. Much of this stuff is available after broadcast on the internet (own moral/legal guidelines apply! Though since I’ll generally recommend free-to-air documentary stuff then it’s hardly a big issue).

and of course, since I haven't yet actually watched any of this stuff - it's only a best guess! :-)

The TV tips sub blog is HERE  (first tips already posted for 31-Oct to 6-Nov)

Alice, Alice, everyone knows Alice

I would guess that most, if not all, of my non-fiction books (by everyone from Dennett to Dawkins) reference Alice in Wonderland in someway, so no surprise, but still interesting, to read the other day that the Alice books are the third most-quoted texts in the English language, after the Christian Bible and Shakespeare.

Amazing that a children's story has almost as much to say about the world as one of the world's best playwrights, or one of the most ancient religious texts. Curiouser and curiouser as she would say.

new subpage : in the news

Have added a new subpage 'In The News' which is where i'll post links to any interesting news/reports/etc. I stumble across. The idea is to recreate the 'share/like' feature in facebook, which I anyway often use to try and highlight not just what i think people might like to know, but should know.
Inform and be damned :-)

Will also act as a log for my own memory (if not quite posterity) to see what topics interested me in the days that were...

what I watched : JFK, the making of modern politics

Hadn't realised that JFK's election machine ushered in the era of big money, slick and spinning, campaigning. My thoughts on Andrew Marr's documentary here

Žižek on the Occupy protests, and quotes for the day (Clinton and Chesterton)

Liked this article by Slavoj Žižek on the Occupy protests...and provided 2 nice quotes for the day : 

"Merely having an open mind is nothing; the object of opening the mind, as of opening the mouth, is to shut it again on something solid." GK Chesterton


"They need to be for something specific, and not just against something because if you're just against something, someone else will fill the vacuum you create," Bill Clinton

Unprecedented, but not very presidential

I admit I haven't being paying much attention to the Irish presidential election (to be held tomorrow), since I don't live there anymore, and the office itself is largely ceremonial. However having been exposed to the finale of the campaigns on a recent visit to the country,  it does seem worth at least briefly commenting on, if not for the politics then at least for the personalities. In a country long dominated by both the church and the issue of the north  it is indeed amazing that among the seven candidates is a divorcee, an openly gay man, and an ex-terrorist. If the US republican right is as obsessed as they say with 'Guns, God, and gays' then this collection would surely interest them. They might even like Dana. Full article is here

What the phone didn't do

It seems the Blackberry outage is held to be responsible for a recent 40% drop in traffic accidents in Abu Dhabi, which would suggest four out of ten accidents there are being caused by people reading email at the wheel!

While a nice piece of trivia, it's also an interesting example of how events in one area (email outage) can result in significant changes in crowd behaviour in another, and, assuming some of these accidents might have been fatal, quite literally how these influences can be a matter of life and death.
What comes to my mind is the potential this shows for manipulating individual behaviour, for large scale effects, and the ethical questions that then arise. [more on this here] 

quote for the day

"instead of a better society, the only thing almost everyone strives for is to better their own position - as individuals - within a particular society."

Richard Wilkinson.

What I watched : Hands off our childhood George

Apart from a chance to see some excellent fan tributes to Star Wars, the documentary 'the people vs. George Lucas' raises some interesting question about the ownership of art. Check out my review here

Quotes, on vanishing lives and how to lead them

Some recent quotes that caught my eye:

Paul Austere on vanishing lives (here) and Aristotle on marriage (here)

Angry Young Man - Bill Hicks

just wrote a bit of a review of American, the Bill Hicks story. Angry young man, but not just angry and young. Main post is here