Originality and olive oil

Friday, 4 December, 2009

Reading the New Yorker the other day, I came across the following line (subscription required) from chef Heston Blumenthal (renowned for using the lab techniques of food science for luxury catering rather than mass production). Blumenthal was writing about growing up in the gastronomic wilderness of 1970s Britain:

…a time when olive oil was available in Britain only at the chemist’s - for putting in your ears rather than in a pan.

The phrase sounded rather familiar… [more…]

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Mobile phones vs. Telegrams: Journalism Morality Down the Ages

9 July 2009

Given Nick Davies’ story alleging mass mobile phone-hacking by journalists, it might perhaps be instructive to look back at the journalistic morals of another age.
Here, by way of example, is ‘Journalism and Morality’ by Silas Bent, published in 1926 in The Atlantic (and quoted in Can You Trust The Media?). Note especially - towards the […]

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Leaving

9 July 2009

Although I’ll be haunting College Building for the next week or so, today is my leaving drinks (or ‘glad you’re gone’ party as we used to call them).
I’ll be keeping up a link with the place as a prof, and I’ll be trying to bash out a PhD. And I’ll also be giving a modest sum […]

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Newspaper subscription by algorithm

16 June 2009

My hunch? Not quite there yet…

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The New York Times via the Daily Show

11 June 2009

The Daily Show With Jon Stewart
Mon - Thurs 11p / 10c

End Times

www.thedailyshow.com

Daily Show Full Episodes
Political Humor
Newt Gingrich Unedited Interview

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Media vanity projects…

11 June 2009

This short paragraph from an obit of Fleur Cowles gives you some idea of why the tastes of media connoisseurs and the general public are not necessarily in synch (and of the source of creative motivation):
Flair was a short-lived, loss-making, vanity project, meant to showcase the persona Fleur had invented for herself. Media professionals and students […]

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The redundant story: math and the future of journalism

1 June 2009

I have long argued the rather unoriginal position that journalism’s mission to inform has its roots in religious ‘infotainment’ both popular and intellectual - moralising editorials replaced moralising sermons, etc.
But I’ve been struggling to express why that mission seems such a recurrent trope in history. The use of stories for entertaining and moral purposes is clear […]

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