tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-23400750Sun, 07 Mar 2010 10:53:30 +0000A blog about, among other things, imaginary ideas - What ifs? and Imagine thats. What if photographs looked nothing like what we see with our eyes? Imagine that the Berlin Wall had never come down. What if we were the punchline of an interminable joke? All contributions welcome.http://www.bryanappleyard.com/blog/index.phpnoreply@blogger.com (Bryan Appleyard)Blogger2803125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-23400750.post-2101299828236070308Sun, 21 Feb 2010 07:39:00 +00002010-02-21T07:40:50.863ZIn The Sunday Times I talk about shrinking penises, obesity and networks. The book is Connected by Christakis and Fowler.http://www.bryanappleyard.com/blog/2010/02/connected.phpnoreply@blogger.com (Bryan Appleyard)3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-23400750.post-6206575088991643464Sun, 14 Feb 2010 07:30:00 +00002010-02-14T07:31:36.303ZIn The Sunday Times I discuss the wrinkly revolution - demographic and cultural.http://www.bryanappleyard.com/blog/2010/02/old-will-win.phpnoreply@blogger.com (Bryan Appleyard)11tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-23400750.post-132702931515146984Sun, 31 Jan 2010 16:41:00 +00002010-01-31T16:42:12.463ZIn The Sunday Times I interview Peter Carey in New York.http://www.bryanappleyard.com/blog/2010/01/peter-carey.phpnoreply@blogger.com (Bryan Appleyard)5tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-23400750.post-6232076641086901825Sun, 24 Jan 2010 03:51:00 +00002010-01-24T03:53:54.663ZBolinas, California.From where, I discover, Bill Berkson originated. He was the, at least, partial inspiration of a great poem - Frank O'Hara's For the Chinese New Year and for Bill Berkson.http://www.bryanappleyard.com/blog/2010/01/god-i-love-america.phpnoreply@blogger.com (Bryan Appleyard)2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-23400750.post-3595490645067802287Fri, 22 Jan 2010 18:51:00 +00002010-01-24T00:47:23.646ZHello from San Francisco. In The Sunday Times I interview - or, rather, sit at the feet of - Chinua Achebe. Link later. Here it is.http://www.bryanappleyard.com/blog/2010/01/achebe.phpnoreply@blogger.com (Bryan Appleyard)3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-23400750.post-1135646035775803190Sat, 16 Jan 2010 14:53:00 +00002010-01-17T01:47:11.308ZHello from New York. Tomorrow in The Sunday Times I interview Jaron Lanier. Link later. Here it is.http://www.bryanappleyard.com/blog/2010/01/jaron-lanier.phpnoreply@blogger.com (Bryan Appleyard)21tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-23400750.post-3184661661890199230Sun, 10 Jan 2010 10:10:00 +00002010-01-10T10:13:17.115ZIn The Sunday Times I review Tom Chatfield's book on computer games Fun Inc.. My conclusion is that Jason's Rohrer's Passage is the greatest game of all. Do not, however, get involved with Rohrer's Primrose. Your conscious life will end.http://www.bryanappleyard.com/blog/2010/01/on-games.phpnoreply@blogger.com (Bryan Appleyard)9tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-23400750.post-6494278043402857921Sun, 27 Dec 2009 07:25:00 +00002009-12-27T07:29:52.715ZIn The Sunday Times I wrote about the world in the noughties, compulsively destructive artist Michael Landy and science and technology in the next decade.http://www.bryanappleyard.com/blog/2009/12/destruction-past-and-future.phpnoreply@blogger.com (Bryan Appleyard)17tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-23400750.post-4775568763451089519Thu, 24 Dec 2009 22:37:00 +00002009-12-24T22:40:25.863ZYou waste your time wondering what it's all about until, one day, it rides past you on a donkey and you don't notice. Luv 'n' peece, guys.http://www.bryanappleyard.com/blog/2009/12/on-donkey.phpnoreply@blogger.com (Bryan Appleyard)11tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-23400750.post-3354463412711385939Mon, 21 Dec 2009 16:41:00 +00002009-12-21T16:51:50.505ZNorfolk roads have been made beautiful and unfamiliar by the snow. No, that should be 'beautiful but unfamiliar'. The beauty of Norfolk lies in being Norfolk. But snow neutralises. I drive down lanes overhung with branches bending under the white weight that could be in Russia or Scandinavia. It's thrilling but wrong. One of the most perfect poems I know was written about this strange http://www.bryanappleyard.com/blog/2009/12/snow.phpnoreply@blogger.com (Bryan Appleyard)6tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-23400750.post-5357020688582515368Mon, 21 Dec 2009 16:21:00 +00002009-12-21T16:26:03.879ZI am, frankly, baffled or, indeed, frankly baffled about the generally negative response to the Copenhagen global warming thing. Here in Norfolk it is apparent that it was a raging success. It demonstrated the power positive thinking. They issue a statement along the lines of 'we don't like you, global warming, go away' and, bingo, just like that it went away. And, yes, that is Denis the Menace, http://www.bryanappleyard.com/blog/2009/12/copenhagen-triumph.phpnoreply@blogger.com (Bryan Appleyard)10tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-23400750.post-200742923112057337Fri, 18 Dec 2009 15:42:00 +00002009-12-18T15:47:57.688ZI just downloaded Killing in the Name by Rage Against the Machine. I hope you will too. It's not my normal sort of listening but anything to help pause the Simon Cowell juggernaut. Apparently he said the campaign to knock his latest accessory, Joe McElderry, off the top of the Christmas charts was 'cynical'. 'Yeah, right,' said Ironic Daughter, 'like X-Factor's all about the love.'http://www.bryanappleyard.com/blog/2009/12/all-about-love.phpnoreply@blogger.com (Bryan Appleyard)9tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-23400750.post-900286256148388069Fri, 18 Dec 2009 09:23:00 +00002009-12-18T11:29:49.342ZJust now I caught a moment of Sebastian Coe on Desert Island Discs. He was remembering walking to the hall where the host city for the 2012 Olympics was to be announced. His mobile rang, it was the Prime Minister - Blair, but it could just as well have been Brown. Blair asked who had won. Coe said the announcement hadn't been made. Blair said, 'Yes, but who's won?' Neither Coe nor Kirsty Young http://www.bryanappleyard.com/blog/2009/12/seb-and-kirsty-miss-joke.phpnoreply@blogger.com (Bryan Appleyard)4tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-23400750.post-8238150514059874628Thu, 17 Dec 2009 10:16:00 +00002009-12-18T11:30:44.991ZIt seems to be quite a high life working for British Airways. The management has put all the evidence out there in the Daily Mail. This changes the image of the dispute. Now it looks as though BA staff are more like the printers in the good old days of Fleet Street. A tear springs to my eye when I remember how they used to pour oil on the web (paper) so that it broke and halted production. Or howhttp://www.bryanappleyard.com/blog/2009/12/ba-and-union-history.phpnoreply@blogger.com (Bryan Appleyard)8tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-23400750.post-3293853844757403718Tue, 15 Dec 2009 20:19:00 +00002009-12-15T20:24:27.155ZOh the Higgs Boson could be found by the Fermi Satellite and not the LHC. This seems to be yet another omen of the end of Europe.http://www.bryanappleyard.com/blog/2009/12/higgs-omen.phpnoreply@blogger.com (Bryan Appleyard)3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-23400750.post-2765679789536748455Tue, 15 Dec 2009 07:13:00 +00002009-12-15T07:38:43.303Z'The hard question, of course, is how we could tell that a robot really was conscious, and not just designed to mimic consciousness. Understanding how the robot had been programmed would provide a clue - did the designers write the code to provide only the appearance of consciousness? If so, we would have no reason to believe that the robot was conscious.'Peter Singer and Agata Sagan.Hmmm. How dohttp://www.bryanappleyard.com/blog/2009/12/you-robot.phpnoreply@blogger.com (Bryan Appleyard)36tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-23400750.post-5779694765257717988Mon, 14 Dec 2009 14:48:00 +00002009-12-14T15:02:31.524ZI've noted before some disturbing anti-freedom trends in Norwich, one of my favourite cities. Now there is this. Little people - employed by the unelected and unaccountable company EventGuard - dressed in a little authority will be able to stop, question and harass me and even have access to police files. At least some policepeople have seen the light. People should not get questioned for http://www.bryanappleyard.com/blog/2009/12/british-love-of-petty-authority.phpnoreply@blogger.com (Bryan Appleyard)4tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-23400750.post-8703752647691030714Mon, 14 Dec 2009 14:41:00 +00002009-12-14T14:43:35.474ZThanks, Frank, for this clip of the sublime Jacques Brel on fear. Only a Belgian could so thoroughly out-French the French. Then there is this - the perfect scam. At last it feels like Christmas. http://www.bryanappleyard.com/blog/2009/12/two-good-things.phpnoreply@blogger.com (Bryan Appleyard)2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-23400750.post-4182957908751625025Sun, 13 Dec 2009 06:59:00 +00002009-12-13T07:00:34.482ZIn The Sunday Times I write about the power of prizes.http://www.bryanappleyard.com/blog/2009/12/prizes.phpnoreply@blogger.com (Bryan Appleyard)7tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-23400750.post-8505948396660757424Thu, 10 Dec 2009 15:53:00 +00002009-12-10T15:55:32.509ZGreat Danny produces one of those perfectly satisfying arguments. The Laffer Curve is meaningless because its reverse is also true. The Fink, as he is also known, really is one of the sharpest knives in the hack box.http://www.bryanappleyard.com/blog/2009/12/danny-and-laffer.phpnoreply@blogger.com (Bryan Appleyard)14tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-23400750.post-1646044197134346149Thu, 10 Dec 2009 10:20:00 +00002009-12-10T10:45:08.887ZWhen I was talking to Chris Rapley about that warmist piece, he said he had worked with the astronaut Bruce McCandless. Rapley was very moved by this picture from 1984. It shows McCandless in orbit wearing a Manned Manoeuvring Unit. It is extraordinarily beautiful, perhaps because its content and form are one. The awkward angle between man and horizon and the way his left foot just crosses the http://www.bryanappleyard.com/blog/2009/12/man-in-space.phpnoreply@blogger.com (Bryan Appleyard)7tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-23400750.post-3247931894975764388Thu, 10 Dec 2009 09:12:00 +00002009-12-10T09:41:02.778ZSome Ugandan politicians want to kill gays because homosexuality is 'not natural in Uganda'. In this, they appear to have been encouraged by American advocates of conversion therapy. Both the Ugandans and Ahmadinejad in Iran, where being gay is a capital crime, identify homosexuality with Western influence. Leaving aside the savagery of the application of such ideas, what is striking is the sheerhttp://www.bryanappleyard.com/blog/2009/12/killing-gays.phpnoreply@blogger.com (Bryan Appleyard)9tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-23400750.post-7507222413423623583Thu, 10 Dec 2009 07:37:00 +00002009-12-10T08:03:44.466ZThere's a slightly world's-gone-mad feel about reading an article by Sarah Palin in the Guardian of all places. The Alaskan roguette says Copenhagen is a bad thing because, though there is global warming, it's cyclical and nothing to do with human activity. This is possible but there's no evidence for it whereas there is an awful of of evidence that people are warming the planet. There is, http://www.bryanappleyard.com/blog/2009/12/roguette-versus-warmism.phpnoreply@blogger.com (Bryan Appleyard)15tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-23400750.post-8872204390981096006Wed, 09 Dec 2009 11:58:00 +00002009-12-09T12:00:55.498Z'Shakespeare? I'd rather stick pencils in my eyes!'Jeremy Clarksonhttp://www.bryanappleyard.com/blog/2009/12/discuss-17.phpnoreply@blogger.com (Bryan Appleyard)14tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-23400750.post-7550870452387510486Wed, 09 Dec 2009 06:40:00 +00002009-12-09T06:42:12.061Z'It is impossible to convince a person of any true thing that will cost him money.''First Theorem of Science' - either George Chapline or Robert B.Laughlinhttp://www.bryanappleyard.com/blog/2009/12/discuss-19.phpnoreply@blogger.com (Bryan Appleyard)10