Beethoven’s Symphony No. 3 “Eroica” - A wonderful website devoted to one of the most important pieces in Beethoven’s career, and the history of the symphony. Courtesy of Michael Tilson Thomas and the San Francisco Symphony Orchestra, the website also features works by Copland, Tchaikovsky and Stravinsky.
Flash Earth - View the Earth using Google Earth, [...]
Book Glutton - Another social internet site, this time designed around the premise that it’s good to read together. The site offers members a chance to form and join reading groups, enabling them to discuss and annotate the book while they read.
ControlC - This website provides a way to save a copy of everything [...]
Finally some sense from the government on Britain’s energy problems. Of course, I’m a complete cynic when it comes to discussing ‘carbon footprints’ and ‘global warming’, but there can be little denying the potential problems facing Britain’s energy industry if nothing is planned to replace the current collection of ageing and decommissioned nuclear facilities. Many [...]
» Read the rest of this entry ...Another blunder on the prestigious UK quiz show University Challenge yesterday, as Birmingham took on Magdalen College, Oxford in a very close contest. The question went something like this:
Jeremy Paxman: “Which hydrated ferrous salt used to be known as green vitriol?”
Answer: “Iron sulphate.”
Jeremy Paxman: “No, just sulphate.”
That’s akin to asking who composed Eine kleine Nachtmusik, [...]
How do you domesticate a zebra? You can’t, or at least that’s the justification put forward by Jared Diamond in his Guns, Germs and Steel for why these wild beasts were never used as draught animals or cavalry in sub-Saharan Africa. Much of what Diamond writes has a logical ring to it, and whilst the [...]
» Read the rest of this entry ...There are some pretty banal programmes on television at times, such is the role it plays, but Animal Park - Wild on the West Coast really caught my eye today. It served up the job of a nature programme from California, but it was a real eye opener to some of the ludicrous crap that [...]
» Read the rest of this entry ...Just where is the EU going with its agricultural policy? With the European Commission endorsing a plan to up the previous goal of a 5.75% market share for biofuels in the overall transport fuel supply by 2012, to 10% by 2020, one has to wonder which part of the EU’s goals is being pushed hardest. [...]
» Read the rest of this entry ...
On History by E.J. Hobsbawm
The Complete Illustrated History of China by J.A.G. Roberts
Failed States: The Abuse of Power and the Assault on Democracy by Noam Chomsky
