Magazine

Magazine Recommends…  Gabbeh

…A full feast, a journey, a mystery, a loss and a gain, this film is an obscure treasure - being mostly unknown outside the realm of what is known as world cinema.  A meditative piece that is at odds with the hyper-action of the typical cinematic experience.  Infused with the ultra-poetic spirit of…

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An Inexpert View…  On Intelligence

We have the definition:  Noun. Capacity of mind, especially to understand principles, truths, facts or meanings, acquire knowledge, and apply it to practice; the ability to comprehend and learn.  So far, so vague…

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Prose:  Washed Out

Rain. The heavy pitter-patter outside. On the roof. In the garden. On the terrace. Filling what it can and running down, over, around what it can’t. And it doesn’t matter now. From the flat roof, yesterday I could see far across and I saw a light wink out in the dusk. Too bad, too good, too gone. Around here the heat hung above the sky with the haze that turned all the sunsets orange.

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Magazine Recommends…  Black Secret Technology

It has come to our attention that we have so far only recommended albums from the mid-nineties. We aim to rectify this, but to round things off we’ll introduce you to one more. And it’s a gud’un.

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Helpful Information:  How to Search

On this site references are provided where they may be helpful, excepting where the author has no more inspiration for a web search than is available from reading the text. That is to say - do your own critical research. On that basis, here are some tips we have found useful to that end.

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An Inexpert View…  On The Big Question

…  Let us pick up and twist in the light this cliché of conundrums - not the meaning of life itself, but what does it even mean to ask that?  …

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Magazine Recommends…  Endtroducing

Its title is apt in that this is the first, and last, album by DJ Shadow.  Let me qualify that a little: Yes the artist has produced records since, and with more than a few fine tracks on them, but none were quite that album…

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Prose:  An Aberration In Thought

I get so emotional sometimes… I had arrived at the hospital to visit a friend. I hadn’t seen her for 14 years before the previous time which was some months ago. And now I wanted to visit - as at our age you never know. There were freshly planted trees dotted across the plaza. They were mere saplings - young upstarts - and the delicate pale leaves fluttered slightly in a breeze that wasn’t there.

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#muglife  Tate Modern Mug

Mugs we have known and loved. This useful mug follows the typical wider, slightly shorter bone-china format of recent decades and has done good service in its capacity as a beverage conveyor. While we lament the rarity of the more classic, refined ‘soho’ shape - with its eminently drinkable curled lip, narrower hand-fitting body and slight height advantage - we also ‘drink from the wine available’ and have not been disappointed in this mug as a day-to-day performer.

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An Inexpert View…  John Le Carré - Left Wing or Right Wing?

Last autumn, for some reason the thought occurred to delve into the famous late author’s work for the first time. It may have something to do with the noble Carne Ross, whose work we were also exploring. Yes, the book A Delicate Truth is reputedly, and partly, based on the truth-seeking, campaigning diplomat whose interesting TEDx talk “The Accidental Anarchist” has received over one hundred thousand views. For our first dip we chose the aforementioned work, along with an earlier mid-period classic Our Game.

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An Inexpert View…  On Utility

Following the work of David Graeber, his 2018 publication, the roguishly titled Bullshit Jobs, one is tempted to survey the extent and character of occupation in the 21st Century.  Inexpertly, naturally…

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Magazine Recommends…  His 'N' Hers

…The great appeal of the album isn’t a particular sound though, - its it’s unabashed emotionalism. Soppy, almost gossipy, eyes pseudo angelically rolled to the heavens, tales of loss, love, lust and longing…

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Helpful Information:  Using Hugo for This Site

Hey there! Our resident nerd, who shall remain nameless… made this site using the Hugo framework. Earlier this morning they had this to say about the experience: Hugo is what’s known as a framework, which come in various forms and assist in building a website. For this site we had a basic pre-existing design written in plain html/css and the brief was to take away the tedious task of manually editing code for each post and be able to make quick simple changes across the site.

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Magazine Recommends…  Americanah

On reading this book by popular author Chimamanda Ngozi Adiche one comes away with a sense of family, like being amongst a group of and sharing in their mores and vicissitudes.  It is a rollercoaster ride of human journeys and for those with…

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Prose:  The Break

All I can hear as I lie here is the sound of my breathing. Far off below, lies the city, but no sound makes it up the hill through my thick curtains. The large low room is dark, daylight held at bay. Life, oh life. I’m alive and last I night thought I wasn’t going to be. It was her, she led me there, but then she was one who many would follow.

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