Kester Brewin

The outbreak of swine fever that has originated in Mexico and has now spread pretty much throughout the word appears shocking. The mounting deaths are terrible, but we shouldn’t pretend that this is somehow something new and sinister. Its’ not.
Ever since we left our hunter-gatherer roots and began to domesticate crops and animals, we have [...]

Mixed news today: the UK Home Secretary has given up plans to have a national database to store information on all phonecalls, emails and internet use of UK citizens. Instead, they are going to force communications companies to do that work for them.
I’m pleased they’ve given up the plans, but skeptical about the reasoning. Basically [...]

This could change publishing – and book selling – for ever.

The rising and falling,
fire and ice, droplets and friction,
discharge in deep groans…
Our darkness lit, just for a moment,
earth rejoicing in rain after
three bone-dry days.
Buckety-buck one,
buckety-buck two…
Closer, and ever closer.
__
[I spent Easter with family in Kenya, and Sunday produced the most magnificent thunderstorm. The hippos that mooched past our veranda seemed unperturbed.]

…simply because every time I put it on it circles inexorably towards The Shining by Badly Drawn Boy.
WHY?! Perhaps because every other damn person out there loves it. I don’t. I want an ‘I hate this’ button on my iPod.
This appears to be a fault of here-comes-everybody systems, ie democracies: they tend to the middle. [...]

Very interesting programme on Radio 4 today about the carbon cost of our digital lives. Increased use of digital technology can have green benefits with reduced travel etc., but we what the piece uncovered so well was the huge energy draw that data centres create. Each time we upload a picture to Facebook, or request [...]

It’s been a good sojourn away from blogging, but having been busy writing a new book for a while, I’ve decided it’s time to get back online.
Welcome back if you’ve followed either of my old blogs – pretty much everything has been archived here. If you did link here, it’d be great if you could [...]