Kester Brewin

After three election debates, what have we learned? Firstly – David Cameron, touted as a master-orator and expected to do so well on live television, was very disappointing. He evaded questions, could back little up with figures, and looked more and more like the shiny figurehead of a party which still wants to reward the [...]

Now the Electorate was out in Middle England, and Sky News and other members of the Media brought Gordon Brown to them. They made him stand before the group and said to the Electorate, ‘Voters, this man was caught in the act of speaking rashly in private. He left his microphone on, and it caught [...]

Fascinating, if frightening, piece in The Independent today about the crumbling of support for the moderate Republican Charlie Crist in Florida’s senate election. His opposition, gaining more and more support: Marco Rubio, a man with ‘demigod’ status in the Tea Party movement who at a recent conservative gathering in Washington “declared his love for Guantanamo [...]

In a documentary to be shown shortly, Stephen Hawking has suggested that: a) alien life almost certainly exists in other parts of the universe, and b) it will probably not be friendly. If such life is found, or finds us, I think it will have a profound effect on our idea of ‘the other.’ In [...]

Really pleased to announce that we’ve sorted out three new dates for Apple events over the next couple of months. The idea behind Apple is to get people thinking more reflectively about technology – whether that be digital culture or tool-use. Humans are tool-makers, and the technologies we use form us, just as we form [...]

Interesting piece on the Today programme this morning, re-visiting the constituency of Smethwick – a safe seat in which was notoriously won by the vile Conservative candidate Peter Griffiths in 1964 following his campaign which ran under the slogan ‘If You Want A Nigger For  A Neighbour, Vote Labour.” Smethwick reacted to chuck out the [...]

For anyone who’s watched any US television show starring anyone under the age of 25, or stepped inside a school, or just has, like kids, they’ll know that as a teacher the word I hear most often is, like, “like.” I’ve tried banning it in my lessons, but to no avail. One child today was [...]

Been thinking a lot about the ash cloud that continues to disrupt air-travel the world over. Perhaps it is a good time to reflect and reconsider our relationship to this under-lyingly chaotic earth. Ash in our Mouths Sintered earth, burned and pure is thrown up as if the earth’s guts have sickened, had enough, and [...]

I’ve just finished reading Philip Pullman’s new book The Good Man Jesus and the Scoundrel Christ. As Barry Taylor notes, it’s likely to ruffle a few feathers. But I hope any feathers are from good birds who have actually read it. Seriously – don’t judge this book without reading it. The back of the book [...]

Election Thoughts [1] | Election Thoughts [2] | Election Thoughts [3] In the previous post I concluded that the terrorising dimension of the pressure to choose is not simply down to our ignorance of what the choices might mean, or even our ignorance of what we actually want, but our fear of not really knowing who [...]