Author: philjackman

How dull are motorways?  Mile after mile of carriageways, two, three, four or even more lanes wide with sweeping curves and gentle inclines, built for speed and devoid of interest.  Tarmac and concrete with overhead signs and distance markers repeated again and again in a groundhog sort of way and blue signs that hint at … Continue reading The tedium of Motorways

Can you feel the gravity?  Can you feel its pull, holding you back, dragging you down and sapping your energy?  It is dark matter.  You can feel it but you can’t see it.  It surrounds you, it is everywhere.  It’s the bulk of the organisation that you find yourself in.  It’s hidden in the open … Continue reading Dark matter

Way back in the 60s, Doctor Beeching got out his now infamous axe and started hacking at the nation’s railways.  He built, or rather destroyed, upon his two reports, The Reshaping of British Railways (1963) and The Development of the Major Railway Trunk Routes (1965) both of which were published by the British Railways Board. … Continue reading PSN: The next Beeching?

The human species is undergoing a transformation, our bodies are morphing through genetic mutation driven by social and environmental change.  These changes are subtle, hardly noticeable at first but cumulative over time.  In a few hundred years our bodies will look significantly different through a process of sexual selection and the survival of the adaptable.  … Continue reading Human transformation

Just north of the Pilgrim Street roundabout in Newcastle, where what used to be known as Australia House stands there is now a vacant lot, a piece of barren ground that is hidden behind a large advertising hording.  There used to be a building there, an impressive glass and concrete structure that was occupied by … Continue reading Brave new world

On such a momentous night I just had to reblog one of the first things that I ever wrote.

Which part of the digital divide do you fall on?  A rhetorical question I know as you are reading this blog but are you digitally excluded or are you included?  Are you a digital native, born with a keyboard or a touch screen at your fingertips, or are you an immigrant who has had to … Continue reading Digitally embarrassed

It had to happen sooner or later and it did.  It was only a fleeting moment, a wink of an eye, a fraction of a second but for a while today I felt that I had watched too much sport.  This has been the summer of sport and there has been so much of it … Continue reading Too much sport

I've bought myself a new car, well it's not really new but it's new to me. It's a nearly new ex-demonstrator with low mileage and in a colour that I think looks good.  Well I haven't really bought it either, I'm paying for it on a PCP which I thought was angel dust but stands … Continue reading A bout of parsimony