Digitalia

I for one welcome… etc.

The latest public project from Schulze and Webb, beloved of this parish for basically being much cleverer than me, is site that tracks the word-of-mouth buzz around BBC TV and Radio programs. Yes, it skews populist, for obvious reasons, but I can think of ways round that, and in an iteration or two, might be a really good way of tracking good telly that one would otherwise miss.

Bit of a note to self – with the loss of my laptop, I am kind of aware that had I gotten around to putting proper encryption on the thing, I would not have had to bother with the hassle of changing every single bloody password I use. If you use a laptop, or notebook PC, and don't encrypt the entire HD, then you're running the same risk as I did. (Hell, it's true of desktops, too, but they're not begging to be lost of stolen on a daily basis.) You can find software that will do this for you linked from the link above, whatever OS you use.

"The rise of psychogeography was in some ways an impulse to rediscover those old natural paths that I and others like me had trodden through the ruins, to find ways of rediscovering serious memory, something which Peter Ackroyd (with Chatterton), Alan Moore (From Hell) and Will Self (The Book of Dave) were searching out among the virtual ruins of a London that was becoming a shadow played out on the newly tarted-up walls of Notting Hill and Shadwell.

As well as the friends and relatives who have also become memories, we are equally dependent on the geography of our cities for the myths and rituals by which we live. Without conscious ritual, all we have left are buried tram tracks, some vague ideas of what still lies under the steel-and-concrete cladding and a few bits of film footage."

"I can tell you which Suede record accompanied my GCSEs and A-Levels; today's teenagers would tell you which band."

Never mind kicking myself – I am scourging myself with rusty barbed wire, and rubbing salt in the wounds for missing this. Couple of key quotes from this write up: "Is the current be-scaffolded state of London perpetual remythologising?" Iain Sinclair says “Before we can move forward, we have to absorb everything that has come before, and rip it off.”

Dammit, why was I not told about this? Next year, gadget, next year!

It *almost* makes me want to got there next year, and take a camera. Obviously, I'm not mad, and won't be going, but there are some absolutely gorgeous shots in here.

Shit, I may have to go and see this movie, if only to determine if this review is the touch of genius I suspect it is.

Not a topic I have a hugely vested interest in, being unlikely to marry or spawn, but it's a handy reminder of how Tory social policy is 100% arse backwards. "We must fix our ailing society, by doing things that any idiot can see will only make it worse". Genuine question: in what situation is be conservative (the ideology, not the party) social policy a good idea? Society moves forward – why is attempting to hold it back good or useful?