Category Archives: Environment
Ladybird books: Constructing the future past of modern Britain
I used to visit a beloved university English professor and his wife. He had won the Military Cross for hand to hand combat in the liberation of the Netherlands in 1945 but never talked about the terrible things he’d seen. … Continue reading
Posted in Books, Children, Culture, Design, Environment, Germany, History, Media, Uncategorized, War
Tagged 60s, Bachelor of Hearts, books, conway hall, culture, Hardy Kruger, Ladybird books, media, michael balcon, politics, publishing, Sylvia Syms, war, wolf rilla
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The future sound and vision of Liverpool: Biennial special preview
Tonight’s BBC Front Row is a special programme mostly recorded on location in Liverpool previewing this year’s Biennial of Contemporary Art that runs till October. I particularly enjoyed talking to Mark Leckey about his dreamscape film about his visual memory … Continue reading
Posted in Culture, Environment, Media, Radio
Tagged BBC, betty woodman, front row, liverpool, liverpool biennial, mark leckey, marvin gaye chetwynd, radio 4
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Only Connect: An encounter with Charles Correa and the power of the empty centre
(Jun 17th 2015) I was saddened to hear the news of Charles Correa’s death. An international name who declared he was proudly an Indian architect first, I was fortunate to interview him for Radio 3’s Night Waves in May 2013. … Continue reading
The White North Has Thy Bones: Ice stations, submarines & the woman who swam the North West Passage
Here’s a programme to listen to huddled by the fire, like Jane Eyre with her book of polar wildlife as the wind howls outside. Producer Kevin Dawson came up with the idea of our latest Something Understood programme about the … Continue reading
Posted in Books, Environment, History, Music, Radio, Science Fiction/Fantasy, Travel, Uncategorized
Tagged arctic, david arnold, Frankenstein, from russia with love, ice station zebra, inuit, James Taylor, jane eyre, jude law, Kursk submarine, lynne cox, north west passage, sir john franklin, Something Understood, submarines
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Interstellar’s Heart of Darkness & the Dust Bowl
I like to go to the cinema to escape the gloom of a Sunday evening and what better escape than Interstellar? An epic journey to other worlds. It begins in a rural America devastated by environmental disaster. Real survivors of … Continue reading
Posted in Environment, Film, History, Media, Politics, Religion, Science, Science Fiction/Fantasy, Uncategorized
Tagged adam rutherford, ann druyan, Carl Sagan, cold war, contact, dustbowl, fdr, george pal, Hollywood, humanism, interstellar, jodie foster, joseph conrad, ken burns, mathew mcconaughey, michael caine, nasa, Outer space, roosevelt, Space shuttle, when worlds collide
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Electric cars, the tinned sardine aquarium & the stink of Hearst Castle – an eco-trip through John Steinbeck’s California
This column first appeared in The Big Issue magazine. Journalism worth paying for. A giant eye in an inky mass rose up of the water and beheld me. It was a humpback whale calf surfacing unexpectedly close to the prow … Continue reading
