Author Archives: James - Page 39
How will you be choosing your next boss?
Boss at Rochester Cathedral. Not the right sort as your next (Photo credit: Wikipedia) I'm now in a position of needing to choose my next boss. My loan to DCMS is nearly over, a year has flown by, mostly very enjoyable. If I had a free choice I’d be staying here, my team are excellent and we work well together. The subject matter that we’ve been dealing with is interesting too, and we’re also trying to develop material to help other officials learn from our experiences (and those of others in DCMS). However I can't stay, so I thought I would write a post about how to choose your next boss. Recruitment is Two Way Anyway, this leaves me in the place of finding another job again. So I see recruitment as a two way process. I need to want…
Ghostbusters new movie review
Logo used by the "Ghostbusters" in the film (Photo credit: Wikipedia) Alexander and I went to see the new Ghostbusters movie the other week. It was a very civilised experience in the Reigate Everyman cinema. It even featured bespoke sundaes made in glass jars. The best bit was definitely the movie though. New Ghostbusters or Original? The new movie is most definitely not a remake of the original. It takes the same basic premise and brings it firmly into the 21st century. The movie itself is pretty straightforward, we get what we expect, in that there's a bit of action and some spectacular effects. However the case is an all female group, which I think makes it a better movie, for social reasons as much as how it gives a new angle to make fun. The team are all slightly social outcasts,…
Last Words by Jackson Lear [Book Review]
Last Words by Jackson Lear My rating: 5 of 5 stars I really enjoyed this. It starts off as a holiday diary of a 23 year old British back-packer making his way around Europe. The tension builds gradually from inconvenience and annoyance into the full blown horror of a zombie apocalypse. It felt much more real and plausible to me than most of the zombie books I've read, with one exception. Last Words Mark spends most of his time running away and trying vainly to get home. He travels with a small group of friends, who gradually get split up for one reason or another. He travels through Spain, over to Morocco, into a civil war torn Algeria and then to Tunisia. Through this he relies on others to speak or translate or help. Mark is just a normal guy…
Narrative and Social Media
I had a bit of a lightbulb moment the other day about social media and the driving of narrative. It was when I was doing my analysis on the recent coup attempt in Turkey. Narrative Power Terry Pratchett - master of narrative (Photo credit: Wikipedia) As any reader of Terry Pratchett knows, narrative has a power of its own. Humans are storyphiles. We just love stories, and where we have a narrative in play we will ignore inconvenient facts so that the narrative can continue. Some of what appears to constitute shock might simply be the disruption of narrative. Social media and the filter bubble Social media is well known for creating a filter bubble effect. This isn't a new phenomenon, but the effects are becoming more obvious. See Guido Fawkes on the Brexit filter bubble. Humans are social animals, and maintaining group cohesion requires…
Themself free offer until 19 July
As the title says, you can get a kindle version of Themself for free until the 19th of July (actually about 0700 GMT on the 20th). Here's a link You don't need a kindle to read it though. Amazon do apps for iPhone and Android as well as other types of smartphones. There is also a cloud reader that lets you read from anything that supports a web browser. So if you can read this blog post then you can read the ; Reviews, however short, are always very welcome. I like it if you can share what you liked, or didn't like, but I'm just as happy if you react by giving it a rating. Any rating is better than no rating. If you hated it, that's fine. No book is for everyone and the purpose of reviewing is…