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Blimey, what the hell is going on here? The Torygraph are running entrapment operations against senior lib dems, presumably with the intention of bringing down the coalition. But they hold back from it a bit because they hate Murdoch even more than they hate the lib dems. What the Murdoch press...

http://www.southbankcentre.co.uk/find/literature-spoken-word/tickets/alasdair-gray-54754 Anyone else going to this?

Is there any? Literature-wise, I mean. Fantasy writing seems kind of ripe for formal or political radicalism - strong association with 60's counterculture, very open ended remit, links in to magick / hyperstition, obvious psychedelic potential, free reign to explore alternative modes of...

So where are all the cool kids going to be getting their post carnival action this year?

I saw a thing on TV a couple of years ago that I've been trying to track down (or at least identify ever since.) The main things I remember about it are that it * started with the preperations for a super-glitzy nashville wedding between some country music royalty types, and then immediately...

So yeah, it's struck me recently that I've become sufficiently wrapped up in all this techno techno techno stuff that, apart from folk and classical, its been ages since I actually listened to any new music that works with songs, 'real' instruments and a reasonably conventional idea of live...

Can anyone explain how this idea is meant to work? The concept of competition in secondary education just makes no sense to me. I guess what I'd like is a worked example of what happens in terms of funding etc if you have an area with N schools providing places for the P pupils and a coalition...

Obvious question - what happens next? Best case scenario seems to be a hard rethink on stuff like civil liberties and social justice and reemergence in a few years when lib-con (con-dem?) falls apart as a genuinely progressive party that's still palatable enough to middle england to actually...

Anyone know any useful starting points on the theory of humour - specifically what functions it fulfills in society / culture / literature, rather than why a given thing is funny. Alison's come up against some stuff in the line of work where puritans writing about colonial wars suddenly go into...

Anyone want to recommend some? "Intelligent layman" sort of stuff, so ideally not ultra-specialized or densely theoretical, but not dumbed down either. Particular points of interest would be: * social / cultural / economic stuff rather than or as well as political and military * pre-roman...

Thought it would be interesting to talk about some acts who were good in themselves but inadvertantly launched an avalanche of drivel. Maybe to the extent that you end up hating the original or maybe not. A few starters: Boards of Canada - they're always described as the progenitors of that...

Who's reaching this year? Anything worth looking out for beyond the usual stuff? Anything good on the afterparty front?

Upcoming stuff that might be interesting: I've just bought tickets for this. Also looking forward to this and this. And very much appreciated the Nonclassical event that was posted in the events section here - does anyone know if they're still going on?

Anyone here heading to any? Some decent modern stuff on this year (bit of Ligeti, bit of Xenakis, some Birtwhistle and PMD etc) even if there's nothing to compare with last year's Stockhausen Day, and the more traditional classical and romantic stuff is pretty high grade as usual. Worth a punt...

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/education/8160052.stm I guess we've been over most of this 17 times before here. On the other hand, it seems to me like this sort of issue is actually getting aired in mainstream politics more often now, which is kind of interesting. The language is still...

Is anyone here any good at cooking it? I'm kind of okay as far as I can get with a few recipes, a basic understanding of how flavours work together, and a bit of soy sauce / tofu / ginger / seitan / whatever, but I'd kind of like to get better. So can anyone help? What are the ingredients...

Wow. I got a couple of his books over the holidays and am very impressed so far. I've read 1982 Janine, which was great, and am getting on with Lanark, which also seems to be great. Is there a reason I'd barely heard of this guy before, beyond me just being uncultured? ps no spoilers for...

Why is the nuum still taken as beginning with hardcore? I can see why that's the way the idea developed - essentially because it started off as a way of talking about hardcore / jungle, which really was a musical continuum, rather than about the social / musical / cultural continuum of East...

Something I was thinking about on a couple of train journeys this weeked... I've spent most of my life in places that have either been generally quite interesting and had history or stuff going on or been a bit rough about the edges but had some sense of soul / vibrancy (sorry about all the...

Are there any good ones? Ideally I'm after an overview / history of most of the 20th century (particularly one focussing more on avante garde stuff, not just Shos, Britten, Copeland etc) although I'd also be interested in things covering specific composers or scenes if they were good. It'd be...