Below you will find pages that utilize the taxonomy term “Lists”
December 31, 2017
Top 10 Albums 2017
10. Grails “Chalice Hymnal” Some albums are good because a band continues making the music that you love. Some albums are good because a band takes their ideas a step or two further than before. Chalice Hymnal is that rare album that does both of these things.
The references to past albums include the track Deeper Politics and Deep Snow II, and, as per albums past, these tracks evolve slowly out of languid guitar hooks and smoky atmospherics.
December 29, 2017
Top 10 Songs 2017
10. Rolling Blackouts CF “Julie’s Place” Sometimes you just want a simple pop song about going out somewhere. I enjoyed the Rolling Blackouts’ EP “The French Press”. It contains many catchy tunes as I noted in my review. “Julie’s Place” is the best, speaking of a need to be somewhere or a promise that you will go there. Given that I often listen to music between places, it’s nice to have a song or two like that on my playlist.
August 15, 2014
Guardians of the Galaxy: A Short Review
Finally saw Guardians of the Galaxy today. Here are fifteen observations about the film that may or may not constitute a short review.
At least two Oscars for Best Use Of Body Paint (Green) and Best Use Of Body Paint (Blue) are sewn up. Chris Pratt basically plays Star Lord as “Andy Dwyer in space” and this is fine by me. Best movie to feature a talking raccoon in a long time.
July 29, 2013
Ideas for TV shows: Great Mathematicians
I want to see a TV show about great mathematicians of the past on a channel like BBC Four. Programmes about mathematics tend to be rather condescending, at least to anyone who has a bit of mathematical knowledge. Perhaps a way around this is to delve into the social and historical circumstances of the great mathematicians and how that along with their personality produced the mathematical results for which they are famous.
November 10, 2012
Ambitions
Sometimes, when I am feeling a bit down, I like to write down some of my ambitions. As you can see from this list they are mostly pretty humble but they are also a bit cheesy and embarassing, so I have put them after the fold!
Be wholehearted, cheerful, and sincere Be creative Look at the world and see its many faces, hear its many voices Explore new recipes as often as possible when I cook Learn to like the taste of tomatoes and cucumbers Be more at ease around people Listen to people and hear what they say Play my part Look after someone special Become a parent Share my values with others, help those who need it Break up all the negative things inside me Know what other people want, help them get it When I wake up each morning I would like to remember my dreams Understand art more than I do Lose my fear of creepy crawlies Learn to drive Learn to write left handed (why not?
October 2, 2012
Nonlinear Systems: A Rough Intro
This is another mathematics post that does not actually feature any equations or graphs. It is intended to set the way clear for writing regularly about nonlinear systems. This in itself is a precursor to writing more about mathematical biology as biological systems are inherently complex and nonlinear. I am reading P. G. Drazin’s textbook on Nonlinear Systems and this post is a glossary of terms from the start of the book laid down here because I wanted to remember how to typeset definition lists in Markdown (though in the end I (ab)used <h4> tags because it looked better).
June 29, 2012
A Case For Yellow As Your New Favourite Colour
This post is about the films of Wes Anderson. I am no expert, I’ve just watched them all recently (inspired by seeing “Moonrise Kingdom”) and spotted a some similarities and differences between the films and I thought it would be fun to write about them. My appearance on Mastermind with “The Films of Wes Anderson” as my specialist subject will have to wait for now. Feel free to add to the discussion in the comments.
June 25, 2012
Another Reading List
More books to add to the “University of life” course list. From top to bottom: I picked up “Generation X” for 50p in a charity shop in Tintagel. “Everything Is Going To Be OK” is a picture book full of inspirational mottos. “The Happiness Hypothesis” is the most useful and interesting book that I have read in a long while. I decided to read “How To Write A Sentence” as an alternative to Strunk and White’s “The Elements Of Style” which, while useful, can be a little stuffy!
April 20, 2012
Reading list, mid-April 2012
A hefty reading list that should keep me occupied into the summer. A friend on facebook asked “What course is that for?”, to which I replied “It’s for one of the modules I am doing at the university of life.” This response was quite popular.
August 5, 2011
Five lessons from a year of blogging
I have now been writing decent length articles on this site for about a year. I have learned a lot in this time, mostly about writing but also how to express your feelings and how to marshal your ideas and passions into action. For this month’s “five on the fifth”, I would like to share with you some of the things I have learned.
Writing posts consistently is hard… There are a lot of things that get in the way of regular posting.
July 12, 2011
Why I Love The Jungle Book
Just as with the understated classics I want to set out my stall early on that good movies are good enough. Both Betty Blue and today’s choice The Jungle Book are never going to win any sort of consensus prize for the best movies ever made but they are really good. They also have a personal history attached that makes them worth writing about.
When I was younger both my sisters would be given VHS copies of Disney movies at a rate of about two a year, one for Christmas and one at their birthday.
May 5, 2011
Five Superheroes We Can Live Without
The other day while writing some rather self-pitying notes in my blog book (yes, I handwrite all this rubbish before I go to bed at night!) I came up with some useless superheroes, or rather the only superheroes that a washed-up guy in his early thirties could hope to be. Because I haven’t got any ideas for “five things on the fifth” this month, I decided to flesh out a few of these.
April 6, 2011
Why I Love Betty Blue
I saw Betty Blue (original French title 37,2 Le Matin) for the first time in 1996 shortly after having read the book and it remains one of my favourite films to this day. Although there are many obvious reasons why a sixteen year old boy might like it, I think it does stand up to scrutiny beyond the sex and nudity. This post is a brief explanation of some of the obvious and not-so-obvious reasons why this is a film to be loved and cherished.