Today is the first day of Advent. In Christian tradition this is a time of preparation and waiting for the arrival of the infant Jesus on Christmas Day. These days Advent is often treated as the start ...

‘Mr Blue Sky‘ is a cheerful pop tune by the Electric Light Orchestra. It is entirely unconnected with Bluesky, the social media phenomenon. It’s been around for quite a while, apparently. The social ...

Since my last post in September I’ve grown ever more fond of Bluesky. I look at ex-Twitter less and less. When I do go to Ex-Twitter I still see things of interest, and I retweet a few things, but ...

Apologies, this will be obvious to some, but I have seen enough so-so images on social media to convince me there are others who could post much better pictures if they took just a little bit more ...

In The Lord of the Rings, Frodo declares to Gandalf that it was a pity that Bilbo had not killed the treacherous creature ...

I’ve argued elsewhere that one of the most important themes in Tolkien’s work is loss. Loss of technological ability, loss of lifespan, loss of population, loss of — well, let’s not put too fine a ...

And anyway, what’s all this about The Man In The White Suit? It’s an old film. Starring Alec Guinness. All about how built-in obsolescence is necessary to make the world go round, or something. And ...

My recent post on Tolkien got me thinking about some more current issues. There are others who are better guides to Tolkien’s moral philosophy than I. However, the ...

I had to write something down on my blog or I’d explode. It’s all about built-in obsolescence; the rate of technology increase; and how technology manufacturers use their customers as free ...