confused of calcutta

We all get stuck in our ruts, do our habitual haunting of our comfort zones. Take music for example. I spend most of my time listening to music made between 1964 and 1973; probably half my music is from the period 1966-1971. I enjoy my jazz and blues and classical; I do listen to music [...]

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I’ve known Tom Ilube for a couple of decades now, amazing just how quickly the time’s gone. We used to work together in the late 1980s, sharing an office in Farringdon Road, and our paths have criss-crossed regularly since; when he was at Goldmans and I was at DrKW, then at the BCS and, more [...]

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I have the fortune of being able to support two cricket teams, India (where I spent the first half of my life) and England (where I’m spending the second). That means I follow a lot of cricket. [And when the two countries meet, I'm not conflicted. The Tebbit Test has me supporting India when they [...]

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I’m for data and information portability; you only need to read About This Blog to know I care for it, passionately, and have done so for a long while.
But.
Not all data is mine alone. Not all data is mine to share.
So. Before we get too hung up about what’s right and what’s wrong we need [...]

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Stephen Smoliar was relentless in his insistence that I read Ferdinand Tonnies. And he was right to insist. I am now on my second, slow read of Gemeinschaft und Gesellschaft (Community and Society), as I strive to understand how he differentiated between the two and why. I will write more about what he says when [...]

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I’m a little strange. But then I guess you know that by now.
I believe that man did land on the moon for the first time in 1969; I believe that the images I saw of Apollo 11 on that July day were real, the images I saw as a 11-year old in a very crowded [...]

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No, I haven’t forgotten how to spell. This is not a post about cigarettes or even about archery. Or any of those butts.
It’s about Scrabble, the game invented by Alf Butts around 70 years ago. The game at the heart of the dispute between Hasbro, Mattel (or more correctly, its subsidiary JW Spear) and a [...]

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Managed to watch 10 minutes of cricket this morning. And it got me thinking. There are a lot of ex-captains in the Indian team. For sure I have seen Tendulkar, Ganguly, Dravid, Sehwag and Dhoni each lead the team on different occasions. For all I know Laxman may have led a Test somewhere, but I [...]

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I am sometimes bemused by life. Confused even.
Over the last few months it has become ever more fashionable to bash social networks in general, and Facebook in particular; the king is dead, long live the new king, blah blah. Just a few months ago, you couldn’t walk around without bumping into a Facebook conference, you [...]

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…..Now I’m a believer
Not a trace
Of doubt
In my mind
I’m in love
I’m a believer

 
I’m a Believer. I love that song. Written by Neil Diamond (one of my favourite singer-songwriters, however unfashionable that statement may be) … I hope to see him live this summer, although it won’t rank with seeing Winwood and Clapton play together in [...]

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