Archive for September 2004

Dream: I'm doing yoga-cum-breakdancing with friends (probably inspired by working through some back problems with Hatha Yoga, and the hilarious outtakes of Simon Pegg doing breakdancing in Shaun of the Dead). When I do an especially bendy and impressive Plough-like posture, my upside-down face is greeted by several ginger kittens.... More »

I've just started reading a promising biography of the wide-ranging, often controversial, and certainly neglected Arthur Koestler. The introduction intensifies the impression I had of him as an eclectic, troubled man, with references to alleged rape incidents, and the fact that not only did he commit joint suicide with his... More »

An observation that's frequently offered to me—and one that's as unhelpful as it is true. Sometimes I wonder if I'll fold one day, and either go mad or go and chop wood, carry water in the countryside. (If the collapse of civilisation doesn't force that on us all anyway, scrabbling around... More »

This was summer solstice, 2001. As is my wont, I was lounging around in Avebury. Having eaten a few 'shrooms, I wandered away from my friends, who were ensconced beneath trees near the henge's Cove stones, for a reflective visit to Silbury Hill. Along the path that branches away from... More »

There's no doubt many megabytes of speculation and debate to come on the issues of suffering and transhumanism that I was musing over yesterday. I'll certainly not exhaust my own thoughts with one more post; but I felt there were a few key observations I missed, and that more than... More »

Just been reading a post by George Dvorsky over at Cyborg Democracy, about a response to Francis Fukuyama's assertion that "transhumanism is among the greatest threats currently facing humanity" (Foreign Policy, Sept/Oct 2004). It's mostly concerned with attacking the idea of a human "essence" as the basis of equal rights.... More »

Autumn's probably my favourite season. I'm not sure if it's because my birthday's in October and I'm narcissistic; because after the relaxing heat of the summer the freshness of the breeze and the clarity of the light are just wonderful; because I'm a sucker for the bittersweet romanticism of the... More »

Whatever eddies and currents govern synchronicity in my life seem to be getting rather turbulent, and focussing on memes and words at the moment. I'll use a phrase, or think about a concept, and bam!, there it is, strewn across my path in various forms. C'est le web, I guess. One... More »

When I arrived at college to study Film & Drama in 1990 at Reading, I was a teetotal, drug-free, non-smoking, quasi-Buddhist Woody Allen fan, among other things. I'd drunk Special Brew and smoked fags for a short while when I was sixteen, but they never really appealed. I quickly got... More »

My first cycle ride into Zone 1, so I wear the silly helmet I bought—and feel glad I did. That traffic's a bitch, isn't it? Seriously considering buying a smog mask—reading a headline like 'European deaths from air pollution set to rise' after gulping in Balls Pond Road air in... More »

Despite my contention yesterday, that the horrors of the bloody school siege in Beslan made the desperation of the attackers "seem trivial", I found myself reading a piece on the history of the Chechen conflict today (via Ken MacLeod). It was only as I started talking about these two facts... More »

It seems crazy to me, that it was nearly mid-October last year that I threw together my little gallery of Walthamstow spiders. I can't remember the webs around here blowing me away already by September... Maybe I'm just getting more attuned to them, focussed on them, each year. From my window... More »

This one's certain to be bereft of real inspiration (well I did say I'd post every day, not write something interesting every day). I've got a cold. Yes, on what might be one of the last hot and sunny weekends of the year, I'm stricken with a nose like Niagra,... More »

I just bought a bike. One without an engine that you have to move your legs up and down on. Finding it slightly stupid at best to own a car unless you live in the countryside, I've always managed happily with public transport, hitching and walking. But the bicycle has... More »

After reading a draft copy of a book by Bob Trubshaw, which touched upon some recent developments in cognitive science that I've completely missed out on, I fancied I should make an effort and catch up. Philosophy in the Flesh: The Embodied Mind and Its Challenge to Western Thought by... More »

I thought I should make my first post to my new-look blog soon. I thought it would probably be some sort of reflection on closing norlonto.net down and all that. But I've been down enough recently to feel compelled to look forward without glancing back over my shoulder—to give it... More »