-
Objectivity
In these days of the pandemic, the scientist has finally attained the status always sought. With the development of the vaccine, in such a short space of time, we have our superhero. It may still lag behind in the style stakes, but science has shown itself as the team which assembled to defeat the invader.…
-
Transcendence
Both Darren Mooney, over at them0vieblog, and Keith Phipps of the AVClub, firmly locate The X Files in the 90s. They cannot be faulted for doing so, either. Every time we see a laptop or a mobile phone, we know where we are in time. Mooney goes further, identifying the whole series as capturing the…
-
Where have all the flowers gone?
God is in His Heaven and all is well with the world. To slightly misquote the great Robert Browning. Except He isn’t anymore, is He? It isn’t entirely the fault of the postmodernists – the First World War didn’t do much for the devotion to the Supreme Being – but, whereas the war had unforeseen…
-
V for Various
“To the heroism of Resistance Fighters – past, present and future – this work is respectfully dedicated.” Title Card, V (1983) When V hit TV screens back in the early Eighties, it seemed like major event television. Looking inevitably dated today, at the time, and for a TV show, the effects looked pretty amazing –…
-
Macbeth 3: The metaphor
There is a reason why students of Shakespeare must perennially confront the questions of who is to blame for the deaths of Romeo and Juliet and whether Macbeth is free to act according to his own desires or is manipulated by his wife and/or the Witches. Simply put, Shakespeare gives us enough to raise the…
-
Macbeth 2: The Witches
Macbeth, Shakespeare’s play about male ambition leading to death and destruction, opens with Witches. Whether they are there to please a King or to act as the stimulus to make a king, they are plainly evil. In this role they would be as familiar to Shakespeare’s audience as they remain to a modern one. We…
-
Macbeth I: For Entertainment’s Sake
Despite being one of the most heinous villains in the history of the theatre, we are supposed to retain a modicum of sympathy for Macbeth as he meets his fate at the hands of Macduff. Shakespeare constructed the play in such a way that we are not without some sympathy, even if only because we…
-
Juliet and Romeo
Ah, romance! Don’t we all long for a touch of romance? Maybe this is why Romeo and Juliet has long remained one of Shakespeare’s most popular plays. And this despite its not being very romantic! Let’s be honest, outside the orchard, when the people with whom Romeo interacts are not out of reach, standing on…
-
The Reality of Fiction
The number of times I have heard over the years, when I ask my students about the nature of fiction, that it isn’t true or, even, that it is lies. Nothing, in fact, could be further from the truth. It is not hard to understand why students might think fiction isn’t true; they attend Science…
-
The Story of Life
“Life? Don’t talk to me about life.”Marvin the Paranoid Android ‘The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy‘ by Douglas Adams There is so much pressure, these days, to accept the science. We have no need, so we’re told, for faith or belief in anything for which we cannot provide evidence. Reason and the scientific method are…
-
Subscribe
Subscribed
Already have a WordPress.com account? Log in now.
Mark with an X 