Big Ideas
...doing philosophy, in a pub in London, as and when we feel so inclined
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Reminder: What is psychogeography today?
Rich Cochrane will be giving a talk about pychogeography at Housmans Bookshop tomorrow. Where: 5 Caledonian Road, Kings Cross, London N1 9DX When: Saturday 7 November Time: 5pm until 6.30pm
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22 January 2010 at the Bridewell Theatre
The next performance of Align will be at the Bridewell Theatre in the City of London. The theatre is tucked behind Wrens church of St Bride at the Eastern end of Fleet Street. The site was chosen in part for having historical connections with several of the subjects of Align. Its seconds from Blackf …
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Trailer
This six-minute trailer captures some of the ideas that formed the two-hour Align event. Rich and Robert talk about the big picture in locations on or close to the Strand Ley. Robert also interviews Martin South, artistic director of the Tower Theatre Company, about a curious coincidence pertaining …
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July 2009 Performances
On 7th and 14th July 2009 Robert and Rich gave the first performances of Align in the Talbot Room of the seventeenth century George Inn near London Bridge. Rob Adey, who was in the audience on the second night, took some photos, which you can see here. We also received some kind feedback from many f …
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Robert Kingham
For several years I have been leading Londoners on arcane historical pub crawls, performing texts by others which convey a strong sense of place. Align gives me the opportunity to tell some stories in my own words, and go deeper into some intriguing themes: of ancient continuities; and of that subco …
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Rich Cochrane
The Line in question is in fact a centre around which our multifarious preoccupations have been allowed to cluster: modernity and prehistory, geography and architecture, literature and music, anthropology and philosophy, culture and language. Were interested in the kinds of stories we tell about the …
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Walking the Strand Ley
On March 9th 2009 Robert and Rich walked the Strand Ley as far as is possible in preparation for the first performances of Align. Of course the city prevents following or even perceiving the line as a straight line, but theres really no other way to pick up some details of place besides walking a …
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Deptford Pastoral
Yesterday we walked the lower half of the Ravensbourne River in South East London, recording our impressions as we went.
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The Greenwich Foot Tunnel
Back in the summer Clare, her brother Mark and I visited the foot tunnel to take some photographs. There had been sometimes over-egged stories about the tunnels scheduled closure for works over the next year and our main intention was to document some of the details of the fabric of the place, not k …
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What is psychogeography today?
Rich Cochrane will be giving a talk about pychogeography at Housmans Bookshop, Londons premier radical bookstore, at 5pm on Saturday 7 November. Admission is free.
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A date for your diary
This years Big Ideas Christmas Social will be held on Tuesday 15th December. You probably dont want to think about Christmas festivities yet, but just take a moment to put this date in your diary and then you can forget about it all until December. More details will follow nearer the time.
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Get hooked up with a Greek
Kind of like a philosophical dating agency, this system from Mark Vernon finds your perfect match in ancient Greek philosophy. Ive been matched with Zeno of Citium who, given the stoic suspicion of the emotions and vice, I think might be a bit of a drag of a date
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EVENT: 27 Oct 2009 12:10 - Should All Politicians Be Utilitarians?
Much is made of the collapse of ideology in modern politics. So what guides policy if not an overarching idea? Evidence Based Policy focusses on the success of certain measures taken to achieve specific outcomes, but why should government be interested in these outcomes in the first place? A philoso …
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Is the Theism Debate a Class Conflict?
I ask because Andrew Brown has claimed it is in his CiF blog, and atheism campaigner Ariane Sherine has strongly disagreed. CiF Belief is an engine that runs on this debate, but its an angle I hadnt thought of before so I thought it was worth chewing over.
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Modernism As Coping Mechanism; Postmodernism As Shopping
Reading yet again that the fractured forms of the twentieth century avant gardes were a response to the traumas of the first world war, Im moved to wonder (a) why anyone thinks this is worth saying, since everyone knows it, and (b) why anyone thinks its right.
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An Ackroydian pub crawl
Back by popular demand, Robert Kingham is reprising his London pub crawl inspired by the writings of Peter Ackroyd on 24 October. Starting in Clerkenwell at 1 p.m. and finishing in St. Giles at about 9 p.m., its a walking tour that takes in a wealth of Londons history, from plague pits to Victorian …
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It’s Just A Theory
Ive heard the phrase just a theory applied in a few different contexts in recent weeks and thought it might be worth teasing out what we mean by a theory and what that little modifier just might mean.
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EVENT: 29 Sep 2009 12:09 - Are there risks we can’t afford to take?
There is a wonderfully dark metric used by, among others, transport safety experts: CPF, that is Cost of Preventing a Fatality. When investing in a safety system, the decision will often come down to whether the cost of the system per life saved stays below a budget. Remember that if the driver of y …
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The book-free library
New library: lots of new books, but where are they? Im sitting in the new Shepherds Bush Library. Modern libraries dont really do books. Books are certainly knocking around the place, but you get the sense that they serve as waiting room literature rather than the core purpose of the place. In fact …
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The Hirst-Cartrain Incident
As far as I can tell, heres what happened. Last year, a teenager calling himself (or possibly herself) Cartrain made some collages that included images of work by artist Damian Hirst. Somehow or other, they ended up on the 100artworks site. Hirst was not amused.
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