Last Man On The Moon (live).

A friend of mine, Joe White, has just posted an entrancing music video. Enjoy...

Shooting over disagreement on Kant

Perhaps its too much time in the dark and cold with too much triple distilled vodka, but i'm nevertheless jealous of their philosophical convictions

Gradgrind Gove

How a New Yort Times journalist sees the English...

http://nyti.ms/15SIb55

Fruit and Veg shopping... On rails.

You thought your local farmers' market was hard enough to navigate, tutting at yummy mummies as they dawdle at the cheese stall, blocking the way with gargantuan pushchairs. But try picking out ripe avacadoes while being run down by a megaton train en route to Bangkok...

http://www.thesun.co.uk/sol/homepage/news/4899810/thai-market-has-railway-running-through-it.html#ooid=BiNDM1YjolrRMU0zCGgjkaqUAMuRdyz0

I always thought shopping for fruit and veg was lacking in danger of death.

Jenner in Quarter Finals of Screenwriting Gold

Just found out that my original screenplay, Dr Jenner of Berkeley, has made the quarter finals of Screenwriting Gold, a competition judged by tv and film heavyweights.

Fingers crossed for the semis!

Yes, there are 100 others too. But I must celebrate now before failure arrives...

http://awards.screenwritinggoldmine.com/quarter-finalists-2012

Edinburgers - My 'First Three Fringe'

'What have you been doing?', I hear you ask. 'Where have you been all August?' 'Why no blog posts?', 'My life has been empty without you...'

No? Well, maybe one day.

So I've been up at the Edinburgh Festival Fringe working for Beehive City. I did a daily piece called 'First Three Fringe' where I reviewed the first three shows I got flyered for each day. It was super fun. I saw some absolute crud. And some absolute gold.

Check it all out here...

http://www.beehivecity.com/author/jonathan-rowe/

What did I learn? Well, some stuff.

I like cabaret a lot more than I knew. I got a real kick from those close to the edge characters and up-to-the-minute social commentators in various whacky guises. I will be careful not to avoid this section of the programme in future.

Ticket price does not align with quality. Well, I think we could guess this, but you may believe that an expensive ticket should guarantee a certain level of professionalism and entertainment value. Well, no. Free stuff can be superz. And expensive stuff total crap. But not always. But sometimes. Basically try not to look at ticket prices.

Star ratings are a complete farce. Apparently they are put on by the editors after reading the reviewer's text. So inevitably there is a certain degree of disconnect. But presumably it also can depend on any underlying agenda of a publication. Not that there are any. Of course. ahem. Basically, you're better off reading show descriptions than star ratings.

My hit rate of good shows is better if I read the programme. Thankfully, my human input into show decision actually does help, and I saw a greater proportion of absolutely dreadful shows by the random method. But, and this is a big But - I still saw a great mix of good, bad, ugly, surprising, funny and moving shows in this experiment.

So.

The long. The short. Try the experiment yourself. See what you find. You may see some tosh. But you may be surprised too. But perhaps don't do it this way for your whole stay.