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Tuesday 2 December 2008

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The new seekers

David Jennings

Wednesday, 10th October 2007

David Jennings says that Web 2.0 will enrich our cultural lives immeasurably.

In Version 2.0 of George Orwell’s Nineteen Eighty-Four, Winston Smith will have a ‘preferred customer’ gold card for Googlezon, the corporation that results from the merger of the internet giants Google and Amazon.

Google has completed its mission to organise all the world’s words, images and sounds and make them easy to find; and, once you’ve found what you want, Amazon sells it to you. By recording everything you purchase, look for, look at, listen to or read, Googlezon comes to know your tastes better than you yourself do. It serves you a personalised programme of recommendations and targeted promotions, all of these backed up with patented One-Click™ ordering. You need never again use your initiative to track down new favourites: the privatised Ministry of Information has anticipated your every need.

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A perfect cadence

Stephen Pettitt

This year, on 11 December — and I wish more people knew about it than actually do — the American composer Elliott Carter celebrates his 100th birthday.

Forgotten wonders

Andrew Lambirth

Byzantium 330-1454
Royal Academy, until 22 March 2009

Out of the ordinary

Carolyn Bartholomew

Carolyn Bartholomew talks to Tilda Swinton, an actor who has made a career out of being unconventional

Life lessons

Kate Chisholm

Talking to my dentist, as one does, we discover a mutual enthusiasm for Radio Three’s Composer of the Week (Monday to Friday) and especially its presenter, Donald Macleod.

Apocalypse now

James Delingpole

The TV programmes you watched as a child are like acid flashbacks.

How I became Bulgaria’s etiquette guru

Dylan Jones

Dylan Jones is astonished to find in Sofia that the former communist country has embraced his guide to the mores of modern life — and that not everybody looks like Borat

Is Barack Obama really black? Actually, I’m not so sure

Rod Liddle

Rod Liddle, who wanted the Democrat to win, says the racial dimension to this presidential election was never straightforward, and probably favoured Obama rather than McCain

The market crashes, but the gravy train rolls on

Bryan Forbes

Bryan Forbes lists the prime offenders who continue to fleece taxpayers, consumers, football fans and television owners even as the financial crisis bites. Shame on this Age of Greed