Author Archive
Illegal Music Downloads And The Law
Ever since broadband was set up and made readily available to the general public, illegal music downloads have gone through the roof. Today, approximately 95% of all downloads are illegal and some 6.5m broadband users illegally download music on a daily basis.
Earlier this year, the music industry decided that enough was enough and that this […]
The Dragon And The Bird’s Nest: The Clash Of Sport And Politics At The Olympics
Just before 8:00pm on the 8th day of the 8th month of 2008, 2,008 drummers silently stood in neat, dark rows at the heart of China’s National ‘Bird’s Nest’ Stadium. As the countdown to the opening of the 29th Olympic Games began, counted simultaneously in western and Mandarin figures, the pounding roll of the drums […]
From Decadence to Dissonance: The Aesthetics That Shaped The Late Victorian Era
The ideal meeting of the decadent movement might have been Oscar Wilde’s short play Salome. Originally written in French in 1891, Wilde’s tragedy tells in one act the biblical story of the beautiful Salome, the stepdaughter of the tetrarch Herod Antipas, and the final few days of the life of John the Baptist.
Told in […]
England ‘Til We Die: The Future Of English Football Management
Sven might have been dubbed the “Iceman” for his seemingly cold approach to pressure but it can’t be denied that he had a good CV when he took the manager’s job in 2001. Or did he? His record at club level suggests that Sven’s a winner. As early as 1972 he won the Swedish cup […]
Foetal Alcohol Syndrome: The Dangers of Drinking During Pregnancy
Foetal Alcohol Syndrome (FAS) is a disorder of permanent birth defects that occur in the offspring of pregnant mothers who drink throughout their pregnancy. A relatively new condition that has only recently been discovered, it is difficult to determine whether amount, frequency or timing of alcohol consumption has an effect on the unborn child. Thus, […]
Assisted Performance: The Who, What, Why, When And How
The basic function of AD is to help a person with sight problems understand the visual elements of a performance by providing descriptions of characters’ appearance, body language and what they’re doing. The description is synchronized so it doesn’t interfere with the performance itself.
AD is a relatively new service, having been in existence in […]
Reforming At The Mouth: The Rise Of The Lost Bands
With dance music evidently experiencing a recession and rock music going through somewhat of a renaissance, the time for old rock groups to reform is nigh. Recent years have seen past giants make a come back to the live circuit - groups such as Genesis, The Sex Pistols, Take That (more crock than rock) and […]
Let’s Get Fiscal : Relaxing The Fiscal Rules
It seems to me that, for large swathes of the public, the two “fiscal rules” that govern economic expenditure are, if not totally incomprehensible, at least too shatteringly dull to care about. One states that borrowing should not exceed the bracket of 40% of GDP whilst the other, the ‘golden rule’, refers to the balancing […]