Party animals
The social you are, the more of a party animal you become—and the cheaper it becomes to get wasted. Just ask crayfish.
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Branding: It Burns
According to an Economist review of Wally Olins’ posthumous Brand New: The Shape of Brands to Come (Thames & Hudson, 2014), branding is “about knowing who you are…and showing it.” It sounds simple but for a novelist it is not.
Read moreTwo ways to look at the restored Rijksmuseum
There’s the Economist’s blog article on the brilliantly restored Rijksmuseum, with thoughtful, luscious videography. And then, when your Sunday latte has woken…
Read moreMore on nuns, money, and the evolution of language
I know, I’ve been largely absent. Life is just being very, hm, lifelike at the moment. But here’s a long, juicy post…
Read morePortable Legal Consent
While I wait for a couple of publishing-related things to happen, I’ve been catching up on my reading. This week’s Economist has…
Read moreDirty Old Town
This is “Dirty Old Town,” by Ewan MacColl. As Prospero, the Economist art blog, points out: “Although about Salford, it could be…
Read moreChristopher Logue, poet
I read All Day Permanent Red when it first came out in 2003 (or perhaps it was when it first came out…
Read moreNovels: the expression of the human condition
Campbell’s Soup I (1968), low-res snapshot so it can (hopefully) be considered Fair Use, via Wikipedia A couple of weeks ago I…
Read moreThe future of publishing: retail?
Today for your delectation and delight, here’s a selection of publishing news for you. According to Publishers Weekly, ebook sales in June…
Read moreBoom-time machine
I lifted the title for this post from the Economist article of the same name: Radiocarbon dating provides a range, often spanning…
Read moreMy ‘risk intelligence’ is high, baby. How about yours?
Via Cassandra, I learnt about the Point Project. According to their website, the Point Project: is a project to gather information about…
Read moreEnglish people can’t speak American
On this lovely November Saturday, three things for you delectation and delight. A great review of Kelley’s Dangerous Space by Terry Weyna,…
Read more‘Humankind’ vs. ‘Mankind’
In the battle that is Humankind vs. Mankind we all know who would win: for one thing, there are more than twice…
Read moreThe Sound of Science
(Thanks, Angélique) How do you think a doctor knowsHow a disease like cancer grows?How did we learn how we might treat it?How…
Read moreFacebook for spies
A couple of weeks ago, I read a funny article in the Economist, “Yammering away at the office.” (The Economist is often…
Read morethe Apparatgeist
I cam across a lovely new word last week in the Economist: apparatgeist, in a most interesting piece “The Apparatgeist calls.” ‘How…
Read morea tide of ill-informed good will: more about blockbusters
Well, okay, it looks as though the Economist has already said everying I was trying to say yesterday, and said it better….
Read moremoney in your face
According to the Economist, Jefferson Duarte of Rice University in Houston, Texas, thinks that a person’s creditworthiness can be seen in their…
Read moreTetris + Ecstasy = no PTSD
illustration: The Economist In Medical News Today, I read an article that triggered a lot of thinking. It’s about how playing Tetris…
Read moremind the gap
An interesting article about gender difference in maths and reading test scores in this week’s economist, ‘Vital Statistics‘: Luigi Guiso of the…
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