2016

November

October

Admiring the Abstract in Basel’s Kunstmuseum

During a recent trip to Basel, I found plenty to inspire in the city’s recently extended art museum. As I explored the exhibits, I jotted down the artists whose work caught my attention. Reviewing this list some weeks later, I thought I’d share my findings.

September

Climb Dance

Watch video on YouTube

Climb Dance is a famous cinéma vérité short film, which features Finnish rally driver Ari Vatanen setting a record time in a highly modified four-wheel drive, all-wheel steering Peugeot 405 Turbo 16 GR at the 1988 Pikes Peak International Hill Climb in Colorado, USA. The film was produced by Peugeot and directed by Jean Louis Mourey.

I love everything about this film (which I had not seen until Adam Perfect mentioned it on his blog): the cinematography, the score, and of course Vatanen’s daring cliff-edge driving.

August

Flags

There’s a lot of them around. Here are some more.

June

Not funny

On this clear, sunny Friday, the weather belies the fact that the UK has undertaken an unprecedented and improbable act of self-harm.

May

Election Expenses Exposed

If the Conservative Party wasn’t already rigging the system in its favour, be that by redrawing consistency boundaries (gerrymandering by any other name) or reforming party funding, it turns out they may have broken campaign spending rules as well.

A Channel 4 News investigation has uncovered evidence suggesting large-scale and systematic abuse of spending limits, both at last year’s general election, and during three key by-elections in 2014:

Our investigation has uncovered hundreds of pages of receipts for more than 2,000 nights of hotel stays. In each of three by-election campaigns, we found a pattern – luxury hotels for senior staff, while junior campaigners were put up cheaper rooms – usually the local Premier Inn.

The campaign spending was similar in other ways: 770 rooms were booked in the name or home address of one Conservative staffer - Marion Little - while others appeared under the name “Mr Conservatives”.

None of these hotel receipts seem to have been declared by the party.

This is nothing short of a scandal, yet one helpfully suppressed by the current EU Referendum campaign. All this, revealed on the same week David Cameron hosted the international Anti-Corruption Summit; maybe we need to focus on the corruption taking place a little closer to home, first.

Beyond the depressing particulars of this story, as someone who worked on an earlier design of the Channel 4 News website, I found the presentation of this story to be encouraging, not least because of its uncluttered layout, digestible content and accessible data visualisations. As a news team renowned for its in-depth reporting and investigations, I hope this article is a sign that we can expect more of its online coverage to meet those same high standards.

April

Habitables

Having lived in my current flat for just over two years, I’m determined for this to be the year I finally make it feel like a home.

Freelancing: Year One

It’s been just over a year since I started working for myself, and during the last 12 months I’ve learnt a lot, both about the work, and myself. Having reached this milestone, time to take stock and review my goals for the year ahead.

Declining reputation of Formula One in danger of reaching critical mass

Richard Williams:

Ecclestone is no ignorant newcomer to the sport but he has always treated traditional fans with contempt. Now so many of them are fed up with the squalid political shenanigans and bare-faced cynicism, with the endless rows and constant changes to the contrived and artificial regulations, and with the spectacle of obscene and meaningless waste, that the sport’s declining reputation is in danger of reaching critical mass.

For many, the switch to Sky could be the last straw. As Ecclestone parades with President Aliyev on the grid in Baku in June, his CVC bosses will count the money and feel that his methods are justified.

Others – and now they even include the heroes of the spectacle – fear that his full-throttle pursuit of profit risks leaving the sport in the same state as Fernando Alonso’s crashed McLaren in Melbourne a fortnight ago: an unrecognisable pile of junk, fit only for the breaker’s yard.

Bernie, it’s time to go.

What Happened On Easter Island — A New (Even Scarier) Scenario

Easter Island lives as an example of a society that destroyed itself by overexploiting its own resources. However, some anthropologists are now suggesting that the island’s ecological destruction might not be the fault of humans alone, but their imported population of Polynesian rats:

The ecosystem was severely compromised. And yet, say the anthropologists, Easter Islanders didn’t disappear. They adjusted. They had no lumber to build canoes to go deep-sea fishing. They had fewer birds to hunt. They didn’t have coconuts. But they kept going on rat meat and small helpings of vegetables. They made do.

In this article, Robert Krulwich argues that this success story provides a gloomier example for us to learn from:

Humans are a very adaptable species. We’ve seen people grow used to slums, adjust to concentration camps, learn to live with what fate hands them. If our future is to continuously degrade our planet, lose plant after plant, animal after animal, forgetting what we once enjoyed, adjusting to lesser circumstances, never shouting, “That’s It!” – always making do, I wouldn’t call that “success.”

People can’t remember what their great-grandparents saw, ate and loved about the world. They only know what they know. To prevent an ecological crisis, we must become alarmed. That’s when we’ll act. The new Easter Island story suggests that humans may never hit the alarm.

The boiling frog anecdote offers a similar conclusion.

March

January

Forthcoming Attractions

With a New Year resolution to get out more, I share a few events I’ve recently bought tickets for. Who knows, you might be interested in them too.

2015 in Review

I wasn’t going to write about 2015, but reading a few end-of-year reviews has encouraged me to attempt the same, so here goes…