Jonathan Shearman

Strangest film! State-of-the-art technique and good voice actors, but a really far-out story for young audiences. Kind of a riff on Matrix, but animated. I took my nearly-5 yo grandson, he kind of liked it, due to the colour and movement, but there is no way he could have comprehended the main story-line. Can’t recommend it for under 10’s.

Matteo Mancuso was my big musical discovery of 2023. He's an amazing artist, totally proficient, highly musical and astoundingly versatile. He's listened to and absorbed everything guitar is about in the last half century. The album is great, with huge range across all kinds of styles, from window-shaking metal to the lightest of electric jazz and everything in between. Highly recommended.

Fascinating book and important reading. Pinter is a mathematics professor, and his approach is solidly grounded in cognitive science and evolutionary biology. The basic idea is that the mind organises cogntition in terms of gestalts, or meaningful wholes, which are the means by which even the simplest sentient creatures navigate the world. Even gestalts do not have objective existence - they are purely cognitive in nature - they are the fundamental constituents of lived reality. It's written in a very spare style and doesn't engage in abstruse philosophical speculation, yet it has profound philosophical implications. To me, it conveys the framework for a credible form of philosophical dualism, although he doesn't explicitly say so in the text. Highly recommended.