Category: Culture
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On Pirates and Parrots
Had a question come in via Twitter the other day, asking why pirates have traditionally been depicted as having parrots on their shoulders, so thought I’d post some quick thoughts… Truth be told, there is little evidence that lots of pirates did have parrots perched on them – the image appears to have begun with…
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In the Beginning… Wasn’t the Word | Kind of Blue
Driving back from Suffolk yesterday I had on a podcast from Radiolab, which took the subject of ‘colour’ as a launchpad into various pieces. One of them was the fascinating idea of tetra-chromatics, women (and can only be women) who are born with 4 different receptor cones in their eyes – Red, Blue, Green…and Yellow.…
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Thoughts On Music Piracy… Gift, Copyright and Technology
One of the issues that people have immediately jumped on when I have told them I’m writing about piracy is the thorny issue of pirated music. I know quite a few people who make a living from recording music, and clearly this is a big issue for them because it gets to the heart of…
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‘For Nic’
“Cancer takes so much, it’s ruthless, however there are some things it can’t touch. It can’t take how you feel about someone; it can’t steal what has already been written…” Seems that copies of Mutiny! are arriving and people are getting stuck in, which is brilliant. Can’t wait to hear how people have found it…though,…
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Taste in the Age of Universal Access
Nick Hornby’s column ‘Stuff I’ve Been Reading‘ in the McSweeney’s writing mag The Believer is always the thing I turn to first, and this month’s (well, March/April – but it has to be rowed across the Atlantic in a bath tub, it seems) is one of the best for ages. He is ostensibly writing about…