How to Make a Baby Elephant Float

See p5 of the Holds section in the Circulation Manual.

Book Review

Iain Sinclair's Hackney biography is like an investigation. People are tracked down - Roland Camberton to Herne Hill, Jean-Luc Godard to St John's Wood. Things are connected up - Lauriston Road and Julie Christie, the German Hospital and Joseph Conrad. Stories are recovered - the Labyrinth on Dalston Lane, Astrid Proll and the Matchbox Toy Factory. Now and then the detail threatens to reveal a bigger picture; coincidences that might be more, geographical patterns, the outline of an explanation. And Sinclair's investigation is personal. He's lived in Hackney for 40 years and he wants to know what he's been doing. Idea filled, wide ranging local history.

The German Hospital

The German Hospital, Graham Road, Hackney, by Septuagesima (Creative Commons Licence).

The German Hospital features in Iain Sinclair's Hackney, That Rose-Red Empire: A Confidential Report (London, 2009). He notes it was once an asylum for orphans, and then a hospital for the German community in the area. Now it's a block of private flats. The photograph shows an extension built in 1936.

The Autobiography of a Conscientious Objector

One of the texts in the New Zealand Electronic Text Centre is "We Will Not Cease", Archibald Baxter's account of his experience as a conscientious objector during the First World War. Rereading the first few pages it's striking how calm and matter of fact the writing is.

The Prisoners' Dilemma

Nicola Lacey is professor of criminal law and legal theory at LSE. Here's the 2007 Hamlyn Lecture, which she gave last December. She discusses the connection between the social, political and economic systems, and the criminal justice policies, of certain late modern democracies.

The sooner the better

Something to do at Rhymetime (originally posted by tobenseymour),

Cuties

Last.fm looks good. The Comet Gain biography cleared up something I've wondered about. Phil Sutton was the drummer in the original lineup, but the sleeve notes to their first album "Casino Classics" credit "Hoffner Burns" with percussion. It turns out that they're the same person. There's also an Anorak group.