Hi Minae

Whatever Happened To The Short Story?

Whatever Happened To The Short Story?

I recently rewatched some of the TV series Sex and the City a few days ago, and in the middle of the third episode or thereabouts, I realised something odd, out of place. I realised that episodes were only about twenty something minutes long. Nowadays TV programmes be they factual, dramatic or comedic are usually about forty-five minutes to an hour long, soap opera being an exception. I also noticed that there were less ‘extras’, and few there were on the DVD were called ‘featurettes’, which made feel rather nostalgic when compared to 2011 standards of there being numerous episode commentaries, outtakes, deleted scenes, interviews with the actors, writers, directors, producers and the producer’s pet cat. Whatever happened to just telling a good story, and that a pre-requisite for being ‘a good story’ did not include being long.

Do not mistake me, I am not against long programmes or extras, as a big fan of House M.D. and Doctor Who, dramas that deserve their forty odd minutes and do offer good extras, I enjoy them, but the presumption these days that there must be extras and that it must be so long does infuriate me. I imagine that there must be many good stories, especially in science fiction that would be great to see filmed, but just don’t need that much time to be told. If Saki or Franz Kafka or Carl Sagan were writing today, they wouldn’t have prayer.

There are still some programmes that have not fallen victim to the need for length, Peep Show being a prime example. I only hope others will follow their example before we get The Only Way Is Essex: The Movie, all three hours fifteen minutes of it.

Michey's Annoyance at the Lack of News About Japan on UK TV

March 11th 2011: A New Hojoki?

My wife is Japanese so on March 11th, it felt as if my heart stopped.  It was unreal.  When I saw it it on TV I kept thinking of the 'Hojoki: Visions of a torn world' by Kamo-no-Chomei.  He tells of a series of storms, earthquates and other natural disasters that happened in Kyoto in the 12th Century.  Kamo-no-Chomei retreated to a 'ten foot squared hut' to avoid all the people as they attacked each other.


THIS DID NOT HAPPEN THIS TIME.

A few days after the earthquake a Twitter friend send me a picture of Tokushima-shi where my wife lives just to put my mind at rest.  The British comedian David Mitchell  twittered me, hoping I and my wife was well.  Everyone from the UK, Europe, Japan, whether they know me or not have been so supportive, and I thank them.

To Minae

Philosophy, Alan Turing & Me

People sometimes ask me what got me interested in philosophy, well the answer is simple, Alan Mathison Turing did.  I never met him, lived from 1912 – 1954, unlike me he was primarily a  scientist, and  unlike me, gay.  We had very little in common, except for one thing: he was incredibly curious about the world.  Whilst doing a BTEC in Computer Studies in 1994 – 1996, I had to study logic gates and algorithms, which fascinated me, I asked my teacher where these ideas came from, and he gave me Turing’s ACE Report – literally blueprints for a computer, written in the early 1940’s.  I was intrigued, but at that time had very little material to develop my interest.

However, in 1996 I did A Levels, and in Psychology came across an article ‘Can Machines Think’ by Alan Turing. I went back to my Turing, reading ‘On Computable Numbers, with an Application to the Entscheidungsproblem’ and anything else I could get my hands on. I was excited by the idea of whether thoughts can occur in something other than a living human brain, a question with which Turing was concerned. I also learnt of his chemical castration in 1952 for the ‘crime’ of homosexuality and of his death in 1954.


Turing led me to Wittgenstein, and through them both, philosophy of which I am now a PhD. He deserves my thanks, which I give Turing gladly.




Anti-Mubarack Protest Oxford, UK 9th Feb