Politics is a funny thing. Or, rather, people’s expectations in politics are funny. Yesterday morning, I confess, I woke up rather confused. There seemed to be lots of people rushing around claiming that the Lords were going to save the NHS. Crossbenchers, Lib Dems and, god help us, Lord Owen, were going to “go rogue” […]
Since the new Focus is almost ready to go, I thought I’d put my editorial from issue 56 online (this is a slightly longer version than the one that appeared in the magazine)… I always seek out reviews of the stuff I get published. I know there are people who say they never look at […]
The latest issue of Focus is almost ready to go to the printers (along with another bumper Vector – hopefully they will be with members by the end of the month – barring delays and disasters. Copies are available to BSFA members – if you’d like to read Focus, Vector and all the other cool […]
So I was flicking through the property pages of the local paper – I’m not one of those people who obsesses about clambering to the top of the property ladder but I do occasionally indulge in a daydream about owning a house with a swimming pool. I like swimming. Anyway, I stumbled across a full […]
Demos yesterday published a new report “Truth, lies and the internet: A report into young people’s digital fluency” by Jamie Bartlett & Carl Miller. While it contains a number of points that can’t, reasonably, be disagreed with, it’s one of those reports about the “internet” that lacks a proper historical and social context, drawing parallels […]
So, Ed the Leader has spoken. It was one of those speeches that I’ve got too used to as a member of the Labour Party where our representatives say some sensible things but then wrap them around a wad of stupidity calculated to appeal to the centre even as the right (Labour and Tory) and […]
I appear to have misplaced my copy of Dead Water by Simon Ings, which is annoying and makes reviewing the book tricky because my notes are scribbled all over it. If anyone finds a copy in a second hand bookshop somewhere with the phrase “I fucking love this” repeatedly scratched in the margin in HB1 […]
It is a cliché to argue that science fiction is never about the future but always about the time in which it is made. Yet, as with many a cliché, there is often a nugget of truth beneath the grimy accumulation of lazy associations. So it was hard to watch the range of films that […]
So watching the (mostly dreadful) debate in Parliament today about the riots, Paul Graham Raven (@PaulGrahamRaven) made a comment in a tweet that hoping for progressive change in politics in the “last decade feels like a litany of futility”. Being more of a pint-half-full person and slightly obsessive about the details – I decided to […]
Watching the little shits who are causing the riots in London wreck and rob and burn their way through the streets can’t help but make you angry. The urge to give them some of their own medicine – to respond to violence with violence – is almost overwhelming. But it must be resisted. You won’t […]