Something in The Way

There is something in the way that prevents me from reaching a wider philosophical enlightenment, and beyond what I thought was just a stage of melancholic existence; much desired (and much-needed), it feels like the inevitable next step that is forever delayed. For some years now my belief is that the ‘something in the way’Continue reading “Something in The Way”

The outdoors has become the factory

The outdoors has become the factory. It has become that inhospitable environment that people were once relieved to clock off from. A few straggling pedestrians are battered by the production-line-motion of road transport noise, violent to the senses; repetitive noises once the preserve of the heavy industries and 20 century-style wars; floodlights that obliterate allContinue reading “The outdoors has become the factory”

Songs that evoke a world once imaginable; animating ghosts from the past

Even though I intend this blog to be about my own responses and reflections on music that has informed my understanding of life during the past 20 years, I have been motivated to write it in the first place due to being captivated by the thoughts of many cultural theorists ; in particular, Mark FisherContinue reading “Songs that evoke a world once imaginable; animating ghosts from the past”

Cynicism Has Had Its Day

A General disappointment with Charlie Brooker’s Yearly Roundup For somebody who highly values Charlie Brooker’s contributions to a post-millennial-television-palette in continual-deterioration (and as somebody who tunes into his television programmes with an unexamined ritualism you’d expect in well-trained church goers) I have slowly had to face the truth that his weekly and yearly Screenwipes haveContinue reading “Cynicism Has Had Its Day”

Black Mirror/Utopia/2013

“2013 is unfolding real horror-show-like” said the protagonist Alex, as he sat back in a bubble of styles and tastes, mixed, and mashed together from decades gone, too alcoholically inebriated to care that the here and now is almost unidentifiable  except for a general distinct lack of faith in everything” (Imagining the protagonist from AContinue reading “Black Mirror/Utopia/2013”

If One Noise Could Represent a Century…

(Note: my dark imagination got carried away here; it’s not really a blog that calls for optimism) Whenever I hear two particular sounds they  emotionally grip me so intensely, because they seem much more than sounds that embody a time; they sound as if all elements of an entire era were being smashed together atContinue reading “If One Noise Could Represent a Century…”

Thinking along the Hallam Line (Leeds, Wakefield, Barnsley, Meadowhall and Sheffield)

Leeds Along with the Engineering of Leeds (my 4th town) into a (relative) economic powerhouse, there seems to have followed an almost identi-kit pasting of all the traits usually found in the big financial centres like the City of London, yet in a much smaller area circling the railway station (after which it begins againContinue reading “Thinking along the Hallam Line (Leeds, Wakefield, Barnsley, Meadowhall and Sheffield)”