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Walking Commentary

Walking Commentary

Thoughts and cycling from Manchester to Rome in 2023

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Fake Memoir

Chrome

March 21, 2021 by Simon Robinson Leave a Comment

JG Ballard was in the news in 1973 for his novel Crash and I had no idea of the controversy the book created. Many considered it to be utterly pornographic. Then I saw the 1996 Cronenberg movie. After which I read the book. But why did I ever read the book? I suppose it’s because I presumed the movie was more extreme than the book. I was horrified even though I classified the movie as urban science fiction. But it was more Alien than Barbarella. Before seeing the movie, I didn’t know there was a word for a car-crash sex fetish. I was intrigued that symphorophiliacs existed at all. Sometimes reality offers things even more strange than a vampire. And since I lived under the flight path to Heathrow at the time, I briefly wondered if there was a word for plane-crash fetishists.

From a visit to Montjuïc in 2010.
[Read more…] about Chrome

Filed Under: Fake Memoir Tagged With: architecture, barcelona, booklink, browsers, david cronenberg, jg ballard, mies van der rohe, movies, photo, travel

Rugby Losses

March 20, 2021 by Simon Robinson Leave a Comment

We watched Leinster Rugby host Ospreys for a very rare home loss. We can’t go to home games due to the pandemic and so we watched on TV. There was a degree of horror for home supporters as Ospreys scored 21 points in the last twelve minutes to win by 24 point to 19. Leinster had the game in the bag from half time but did nothing to consolidate their 19-3 advantage.

Heineken Champions Cup Final Twickenham 2012
Leinster won 42-14 over Ulster in an ‘All Ireland Final’.
[Read more…] about Rugby Losses

Filed Under: Fake Memoir Tagged With: leinster rugby, rugby, travel

On Altruism

March 19, 2021 by Simon Robinson Leave a Comment

I was much taken as a teenager by Ayn Rand’s book The Fountainhead. I was at an age of searching for the self I might become by finding what I couldn’t see of myself in the words of others. And Howard Roark came into my life at that nexus. I thought I wanted to be able to say that ‘I recognise no obligations toward men except one: to respect their freedom and to take no part in a slave society.’

My recent haul of lockdown gifts … thank you for encouraging me to get walking.
[Read more…] about On Altruism

Filed Under: Fake Memoir Tagged With: albert camus, ayn rand, booklink, franz kafka, jrr tolkien, photos

Sand Surprise

March 18, 2021 by Simon Robinson Leave a Comment

‘When British mathematician Clive Humby said ‘Data is the new oil‘ back in 2006, he meant that data, like oil, must be refined and transformed to make it into useful products and services.’

Tim O’Reilly quoted this to open his recent article Data Is the New Sand for The Information. He concluded that data isn’t oil, it’s more like sand.

And that got me thinking, as I suspect O’Reilly wanted: his very first line was that ‘The metaphors we use are like a map. They can guide us or lead us astray.’

Sand Martins surprised me many years ago.
[Read more…] about Sand Surprise

Filed Under: Anchoritism, Fake Memoir Tagged With: alfred korzybski, birds, clive humby, moore's law, photos, tim o'reilly

Green 495-570 nm

March 17, 2021 by Simon Robinson Leave a Comment

Green exists between blue and yellow on the rainbow. It’s odd think that the rainbow might be a few kilometres away but the green is only a colour of the light with a 495–570 nanometre wavelength. It isn’t possible to be sure how far away a rainbow might be because it really only exists in your head. The rainbow is dimensionless, having no weight, size or physical manifestation. Your eye is what receives the rays of light refracted by the millions of droplets of water as they fall from the sky. Transience amplified. But the green is real.

Killiney Obelisk on St Patrick’s Night 2013
[Read more…] about Green 495-570 nm

Filed Under: Anchoritism, Fake Memoir Tagged With: booklink, colour, Dublin Mountains Way, leatrice eiseman, rainbow, walking

Trees, Power and Ship

March 16, 2021 by Simon Robinson Leave a Comment

I was sent home by the police recently. I was stopped at a road block and in truth, I couldn’t justify my travel as essential. I explained that I was less than 5 km from home and that I was headed for a walk in order to take photographs of trees for an upcoming book. ‘That’s hardly essential work’ he said while his colleague was clearly issuing a fine to the driver ahead of me.

‘I’ll go home then’

Promising Local Magnolia
[Read more…] about Trees, Power and Ship

Filed Under: Anchoritism, Chapbooks, Fake Memoir Tagged With: photography, photozines, the titanic, travel

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