Giovanni Battista Bugatti - what a name, eh? It sounds like the kind of bloke you’d expect to sell you a fine bottle of chianti or offer unsolicited advice about your olive oil. But no - our man Bugatti wasn’t swirling wine or chasing goats in the hills. He was the official executioner for the … Continue reading Mastro Titta: Pope’s Little Helper with a Big Sword
Tag: Life
The Idiot Boy and the Machine: On Ned Ludd’s Kids in the Age of AI
For Context The Luddites weren’t technophobes. Let’s get that out the way. They weren’t afraid of machines in the abstract - they were afraid of being replaced, discarded, and starved by them. And frankly, I think that’s fair. The story begins in the early 1800s, in the smoky belly of England’s Industrial Revolution. Skilled textile … Continue reading The Idiot Boy and the Machine: On Ned Ludd’s Kids in the Age of AI
In Absentia: A Theology of Objects
I've touched on a similar theme in an earlier post, but as per my obsession with objects, I thought there's be no harm indulging again. There’s a sentence in Julian Barnes’ Metroland that hits with the sort of quiet, subcutaneous sting I’ve come to associate with him: Objects contain absent people. On the face of it, it's a throwaway … Continue reading In Absentia: A Theology of Objects
What Remains After Love: A Reflection on The End of the Affair
There are books that don’t so much entertain as they haunt. They don’t ask for your approval, or even your sympathy - they simply step into the quietest room of your mind and sit there, uninvited, until you are forced to acknowledge them. The End of the Affair by Graham Greene is one of those … Continue reading What Remains After Love: A Reflection on The End of the Affair
A Cacophony of Creaks and Courage: On the Curious Brilliance of Hendrik Groen, 83¼ Years Old
I came to The Secret Diary of Hendrik Groen, 83¼ Years Old expecting the sort of gentle chuckle one lets out when a pensioner mistakes TikTok for a foot ointment. What I found instead was a revelation - less a book, more a quietly defiant act of civil disobedience, written in biro. If Alan Bennett’s … Continue reading A Cacophony of Creaks and Courage: On the Curious Brilliance of Hendrik Groen, 83¼ Years Old
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