tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-234007502009-11-22T10:05:24.028ZA blog about, among other things, imaginary ideas - What ifs? and Imagine thats. What if photographs looked nothing like what we see with our eyes? Imagine that the Berlin Wall had never come down. What if we were the punchline of an interminable joke? All contributions welcome.Bryan Appleyardhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08276787058430388582noreply@blogger.comBlogger2759125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-23400750.post-78891230852180784962009-11-22T09:20:00.003Z2009-11-22T10:05:16.633Z

It had crossed my mind to stop posting and hand over this blog to the commenters. They seem to be doing a better job than me. But perhaps I'd better straighten a few things out. Please note that at the end of this post P.Z.Myers will still be a jerk and I still won't be. I was in the middle of writing on Friday when I noticed, as if for the first time, a habit of mine. For pace and economy I

Bryan Appleyardhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08276787058430388582noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-23400750.post-46718964180502286842009-11-22T07:42:00.003Z2009-11-22T07:46:05.176Z

In The Sunday Times, as Spike Jonze's film of Maurice Sendak's Where the Wild Things Are opens, I, write about children's movies and I discuss censorship of cyberspace.

Bryan Appleyardhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08276787058430388582noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-23400750.post-15803293836708619382009-11-18T17:28:00.002Z2009-11-18T17:29:20.960Z

I've had a lot of emails complaining that my Sunday Times article on Cameron's intellectuals wasn't on the ST web site. Now it is.

Bryan Appleyardhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08276787058430388582noreply@blogger.com5tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-23400750.post-86208587310135084532009-11-17T07:36:00.004Z2009-11-17T08:00:20.452Z

Regular readers may not be aware that, as a result of a mention by Andrew Sullivan, my For PZ Myers post has attracted many comments from the US Bile Belt. (Thanks, incidentally, to Peter Burnett whose analysis of Myers' debating style caught Andrew's eye.) Many of the bileists points out that I resorted to cheap abuse rather than engaging with Myers' points. This is true and has evidently freed

Bryan Appleyardhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08276787058430388582noreply@blogger.com126tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-23400750.post-74957703811079482672009-11-16T10:38:00.001Z2009-11-16T10:39:19.466Z

Oh no! Never mind, as ever The Onion is on the case.

Bryan Appleyardhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08276787058430388582noreply@blogger.com4tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-23400750.post-5105617832518270952009-11-16T10:22:00.001Z2009-11-16T10:24:20.779Z

'An increasingly mechanistic, fragmented, decontextualised world, marked by unwarranted optimism mixed with paranoia and a feeling of emptiness has come about, reflecting, I believe the unopposed action of a dysfunctional left hemisphere.'Iain McGilchrist

Bryan Appleyardhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08276787058430388582noreply@blogger.com13tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-23400750.post-24736752012985693972009-11-16T07:34:00.002Z2009-11-16T07:42:13.445Z

I watched the Brazil match. I know, I know, it was an England second team and we 'held' them to 1-0, but even so. Brazil were not just better, they were fundamentally better. Looking back, they've always been fundamentally better. It doesn't matter if the manager's not so good or the team is not quite their best, they play football in an entirely different and more effective way. This has been

Bryan Appleyardhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08276787058430388582noreply@blogger.com19tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-23400750.post-36249455694299823242009-11-16T06:43:00.004Z2009-11-16T07:10:26.023Z

I lead a sheltered life. I had no idea, for example, that the world will end in 2012. Happily Roland Emmerich is on the case. It's all down to the Mayan Long Count calendar apparently. Or, maybe, it's due to the approach of the planet Nibiru. NASA has issued a detailed refutation, but, of course, this clear evidence of a cover-up only confirms the impending apocalypse. The Institute for Human

Bryan Appleyardhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08276787058430388582noreply@blogger.com7tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-23400750.post-30196981709481806472009-11-15T12:54:00.003Z2009-11-15T12:56:03.382Z

For reasons that are unclear my articles are appearing sporadically or late on the Sunday Times web site. Last week's Fukuyama is now here. This week I explain the place sports bras are playing in David Cameron's election strategy but it doesn't seem to be up yet

Bryan Appleyardhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08276787058430388582noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-23400750.post-87256949470780943132009-11-13T12:13:00.003Z2009-11-13T12:20:55.546Z

1)Frank Fairfield - check out these three vids.2)Stanley Cavell - especially when he writes about Fred Astaire.'From the pas de deux of the men, Astaire moves into a trance-like solo, quasi-dancing, quasi-singing in which his realization that he has found his way (back) to dancing strikes him as having found his feet again, as having re-found his body, and his ecstasy is such that when, in his

Bryan Appleyardhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08276787058430388582noreply@blogger.com4tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-23400750.post-51266599912970873852009-11-12T11:14:00.001Z2009-11-12T11:15:46.695Z

'... the most incomprehensible thing about the universe is that it is comprehensible.'Albert Einstein

Bryan Appleyardhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08276787058430388582noreply@blogger.com18tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-23400750.post-17190652733881786852009-11-12T09:11:00.004Z2009-11-12T09:33:35.142Z

At the end of his column in the Telegraph, Toby Young tells the story of a man named Bill who gained a poor degree at Brasenose College, Oxford, and was classified by the university's appointments committee as 'not quite' meaning 'not quite a gentleman'. The Bill in question was William Golding who went on to become Brasenose's only ever winner of the Nobel prize. Would the then commitee have

Bryan Appleyardhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08276787058430388582noreply@blogger.com27tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-23400750.post-73115677286543140522009-11-11T11:50:00.004Z2009-11-11T12:04:06.557Z

I wept watching the two minute silence at 11am. I always do. There is something about the First World War that makes my hot tears spurt. Some years ago I visited the Thiepval Memorial to the Missing of the Somme. I went in touristy/aesthete mode - 'Lutyens, good, sometimes great architect. I ought to check this one out.' That didn't last the length of time it took me to get out of the car. For

Bryan Appleyardhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08276787058430388582noreply@blogger.com8tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-23400750.post-29494953280747210902009-11-11T08:49:00.002Z2009-11-11T08:52:29.862Z

'Florensky saw a relationship between the naming of 'God' and the naming of sets in set theory: both God and sets were made real by their naming. In fact, the 'set of all sets' might be God himself.'Loren Graham and Jean-Michel Kantor

Bryan Appleyardhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08276787058430388582noreply@blogger.com7tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-23400750.post-38801057539571104252009-11-11T05:27:00.004Z2009-11-11T08:54:16.965Z

Being, in general, unable to listen to myself on radio, I didn't hear last night's Night Waves. As a result, I don't know how much of the conversation I recorded earlier with Steve 'Freakonomics' Levitt was broadcast. Anyway, the first thing I did was pick him up on a line in Superfreakonomics - 'Morality, it could be argued, represents the way that people would like the world to work - whereas

Bryan Appleyardhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08276787058430388582noreply@blogger.com14tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-23400750.post-55181649098179791812009-11-10T17:41:00.002Z2009-11-10T17:53:40.249Z

As Nige says, the condolence letter unpleasantness makes one feel sorry for Gordo. Keep this up and he'll win the election on a pity vote. It does prove my own point about the ability of the media to make any war other than the most explicitly defensive almost impossible to conduct. This has been an issue ever since Vietnam, of course. During the Falklands, we dealt with it by imposing ruthless

Bryan Appleyardhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08276787058430388582noreply@blogger.com6tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-23400750.post-70937775346878274172009-11-10T08:06:00.003Z2009-11-10T08:12:27.218Z

I can exclusively reveal that the Cambridge University Library is to be renamed the Durex Library. The venerable condom maker seized this golden sponsorship opportunity when it was pointed out that the building had been called 'this magnificent erection' at the opening ceremony. In my days under the library's sinister, threatening shadow it was assumed this had been said by George V. Now, it

Bryan Appleyardhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08276787058430388582noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-23400750.post-18811840232629708552009-11-10T07:06:00.002Z2009-11-10T07:37:03.854Z

Simon Baron-Cohen complains about the possible removal of Asperger's Syndrome from The Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders published by the American Psychiatric Association. Asperger's is not regarded as sufficiently different from classic autism. The APA book defines mental illness for the world and, crucially, for insurance companies. This has always been an alarmingly

Bryan Appleyardhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08276787058430388582noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-23400750.post-20437480084744413602009-11-10T06:48:00.003Z2009-11-10T06:54:03.729Z

A magnificent response from Uncle Dick Madeley to my request for architectural assistance. I find the distant hills strangely moving.

Bryan Appleyardhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08276787058430388582noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-23400750.post-32001511014795660592009-11-09T16:06:00.001Z2009-11-09T16:06:33.571Z

'The universe looks like a put-up job.'Fred Hoyle

Bryan Appleyardhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08276787058430388582noreply@blogger.com64tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-23400750.post-7805559694586980152009-11-09T15:54:00.002Z2009-11-09T16:02:40.489Z

Will Alsop has asked me to draw - my drawing is about as good as my skateboarding - a building for an Italian magazine feature of some kind. It has to be a multi-purpose building. I would like suggestions and drawings, but I don't know if you can put those in comments. Preferably these will not be completely stupid, though somewhat stupid is probably okay.

Bryan Appleyardhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08276787058430388582noreply@blogger.com4tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-23400750.post-39616879267199813652009-11-09T08:16:00.003Z2009-11-09T08:50:11.588Z

From where I'm sitting, I don't think it's possible, honest or meaningful to have an opinion about Afghanistan. It's not going well, our people are dying in a dubious cause and the Karzai government is corrupt; on the other hand, it sounds like a good idea to kill Taliban and withdrawal would be a regional catastrophe. I could stick a pin in 'fight on' or 'withdraw' and then get all columnistic

Bryan Appleyardhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08276787058430388582noreply@blogger.com19tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-23400750.post-23460756251302900692009-11-09T07:15:00.000Z2009-11-09T07:16:34.498Z

'I hate quotations. Tell me what you know.'Ralph Waldo Emerson

Bryan Appleyardhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08276787058430388582noreply@blogger.com9tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-23400750.post-9854632731841933752009-11-08T12:29:00.003Z2009-11-08T12:42:20.890Z

Simon Heffer sticks to the view that it was Giuliani and Bratton's zero tolerance strategy that made New York a nicer, safer place. In Freakonomics Levitt and Dubner deny this, saying the drop in crime had already begun, there had already been a police hiring binge, crime was dropping everywhere not just in New York and this - their killer counter-intuitive argument - was a result of the

Bryan Appleyardhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08276787058430388582noreply@blogger.com10tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-23400750.post-31216938348442372952009-11-08T08:42:00.003Z2009-11-08T09:03:52.105Z

Great piece by Nick Cohen. He's absolutely right, MP's expenses has become a distraction from proper City regulation. I presume health reform is distracting the Americans from the same goal. Nick rightly mentions Larry Summers as one of the Americans standing in the way of bank reform. It is worth noting something Summers said in 1991:'Spread the truth - the laws of economics are like the laws of

Bryan Appleyardhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08276787058430388582noreply@blogger.com5