blog

for the last two months i have been working on my essay documenting the walk i took around swindon at christmas. it’s taken a very long time to complete, two months in all, but early last week i handed it over to james burt, a friend and fellow writer, for editing and proofing. james says he expects to have it back with me in a couple of days time, at which point i plan to integrate his suggestions, tidy it all up and publish it, as a pdf.

after which… i’m not sure yet. it turned into a much larger project than i expected it to - nearly the length of an undergraduate dissertation - so i feel as though i should do more with it than just stick on the website, although i’m not entirely sure what yet.

suggestions welcome!

last weekend i visited arundel with e and her parents. arundel is a lovely little market town on a hill in west sussex, home to the duke of norfolk and a well-preserved norman castle since 1068. today it has a beautifully twee little town centre:

amongst other shops in this photograph one can see a butcher, a grocer’s shop and a bookshop. i was enjoying my stroll around these expensive, specialists stores - admiring the cheeses on offer in the grocer’s window - when it struck me that the only sense in which this place was any more ‘real’ than some virtual version of it - one recreated in second life, say - was that it was a physical location. the england i grew up in and know is all about suburbs, supermarkets, fast food shops, television, blue collar jobs, computer games, motorways, petrol stations, nhs hospitals, prefabricated school buildings, etc, etc. the chocolate box, pastoral & staunchly tory view of england that arundel suggests is just a tourist backdrop. a pretty one, sure, but as unrealistic a backdrop as any scene i’ve seen at the movies or in some computer generated environment.

today is the 3rd of march, 2009, meaning the date is 3.3.9, being square root day (3 x 3 = 9); a facetious geek holiday. i’ve got work today so i can’t ‘celebrate’ it properly but i’ll make sure i have a good square meal tonight and raise my glass to that universal cultural symbol: the square.

take a look around you: they’re everywhere, rectangles, cubes and squares, in every ancient and modern culture all around the world and throughout history; ‘really important. take a few minutes today to show your appreciation for this fundamental cultural symbol.

here’s to the square!