Post-Fordism

Nemesis. Darth Bricktop. Clifford Harding. A good bloke. Not me - Alan Ford. I've recently seen my own contribution to The Real Outlaws DVD (2007), in which I'm wearing a polo shirt under a 'smart casual' shirt, why god only knows. Needless to say, Ford's OTT presenting makes him the real star of the show.

Antinomies of Futurology

'Thanks to modern communications - email, MMS messaging and, in particular, Tweets - we were able to find out what the ordinary Iranian people were feeling without filters, restrictions or censorship. Truly amazing.' So says Richard Bacon, writing in Tuesday's Sun, in a 'personal view on how technology shaped the Noughties'.

Maybe. The pace of technological change is truly impressive these days. So how come the BBC still finds it impossible to pay my appearance fee for being a guest on his show in 2009?!!?

My Bacon role

Over on BBC Radio 5 Live, I am a guest of tonight's Richard Bacon Show (Thursday 24 September). "Following reports that BBC News are looking for a 50 plus female newsreader, Richard asks [callers, me and the other guests] if it really matter[sic] who reads the news."

Text, tweet or call in your views, as they say.

Let the Twittering Begin

Yes, I know I've been neglecting this blog of late. Some of the more anecdotal, chatty and unnecessary one-liners continue to appear at Facebook - where I was a relatively early adopter - from time to time. I will now be (late) adopting Twitter to see if that gets me anywhere in life (see links). More later.

A bit of freelance work

Look out for me in the new Ivano Fossati video (for his song Il Remedio):

Still hacking away

Sibling rivalry

At one point in the new Jay Rayner book my brother is introduced as being "enthusiatic" (p.135). I, on the other hand, have to make do with being "comforting for other academics licking the wounds of their mauling at the hands of media" (Goggin, p.123). Hey, it's a job.

Beyond my comprehension

(Austrian) kids these days. How do we test their grasp of English? Have them interview me (see p.2). Weird.

Straight to Video

My screen acting career is going nowhere. First the cover artwork for my debut feature credit features "A great quote" from the Guardian, apparently (see left). Did the designers forget to clean up, or is this wishful thinking?

Then the film gets slammed over at DVD Reviewer: "You get professional performances from the likes of Jenny Agutter and Jeremy Bulloch, weighed against the majority of the cast who seem to be giving it a go in between their day jobs."

Busted!



Poor reviews aside, you can buy the movie here:

UK Terror attacks? Some sort of Doctor's Plot apparently. Unfortunate phrase that...

No regrets (yet)

UK readers who are missing me this summer can watch me in the comfort of their own home (for about 10 seconds of screen time). My debut feature credit was in the movie Number One Longing Number Two Regret, which is released on DVD in June.

You can buy it at the Amazon link below (official site here).

Going out live

Claire Fox News – Ideas behind the headlines will be broadcast live for the first time this evening, Monday 19 February at 8pm. If you miss it, it will be archived.

This week’s programme is on the fallout from Celebrity Big Brother.

The guests are:

Dr Graham Barnfield - senior lecturer in journalism at UEL who blogs at The Loneliest Jukebox (but you knew that anyway). Author of 'From Direct Cinema to Car-Wreck Video: Reality TV and the Crisis of Content', in Reality TV: How Real is Real?
Richard Woolfenden - film maker, Director XUBE TV.
Chris Jury - actor, writer, director.
Amol Rajan - on-screen audience co-ordinator for Channel Five’s The Wright Stuff, author of forthcoming book Take a Bounty Like Me, which is a manifesto for the handling of ethnic minorities in Britain.

18 on the 19th

On Monday 19 February I'm off to 18 Doughty Street, "much more than a fine Georgian residence that has been renovated to the highest standards. It truly is a home and not just an office or studio. It is the home of the conservative movement," apparently.

I'll be a guest on Claire Fox News – Ideas behind the headlines at 8pm, discussing reality TV and the Celebrity Big Brother racism row.


Alan Wald writes with a reminder of his forthcoming book, Trinity of Passion
The Literary Left and the Antifascist Crusade. "The second of three volumes that track the political and personal lives of several generations of U.S. left-wing writers, Trinity of Passion carries forward the chronicle launched in Exiles from a Future Time: The Forging of the Mid-Twentieth-Century Literary Left. In this volume Wald delves into literary, emotional, and ideological trajectories of radical cultural workers in the era when the International Brigades fought in the Spanish Civil War (1936-39) and the United States battled in World War II (1941-45). Probing in rich and haunting detail the controversial impact of the Popular Front on literary culture, he explores the ethical and aesthetic challenges that pro-Communist writers faced.
Wald presents a cross section of literary talent, from the famous to the forgotten, the major to the minor. The writers examined include Len Zinberg (a.k.a. Ed Lacy), John Oliver Killens, Irwin Shaw, Albert Maltz, Ann Petry, Chester Himes, Henry Roth, Lauren Gilfillan, Ruth McKenney, Morris U. Schappes, and Jo Sinclair. He also uncovers dramatic new information about Arthur Miller's complex commitment to the Left.

Confronting heartfelt questions about Jewish masculinity, racism at the core of liberal democracy, the corrosion of utopian dreams, and the thorny interaction between antifascism and Communism, Wald re-creates the intellectual and cultural landscape of a remarkable era."

If it's anything like as good as the first part of the trilogy, I would strongly recommend it.