Oliver Arditi

Blog archive

  • Get it while you can

    Get it while you can

    Vanguard Street Art is an exhibition charting the development of street art in Bristol from the 1980s, when American hip-hop culture landed there, up to… well, I don’t know when, as I haven’t actually seen the show. What I have done is listen to the accompanying album, which I heard about via a review in Read more

  • Visual worlds

    Visual worlds

    Among the games that I’ve played while catching up on the last few decades of big-budget productions, Horizon: Zero Dawn stands out for its combination of compelling gameplay, an appealing player character, and beautiful visual world-building. I’ve played other games with better voice-acting, better side-quests, more convincing settlements, better writing, and better combat, but Zero Read more

  • Representing

    Representing

    This third and final part of Kim Stanley Robinson’s Science In The Capital series maintains the very consistent tone established in its predecessors. It is a low-key account of the onset of ecological crisis, and of the responses made by a group of scientists, science policy wonks, and politicians, largely inside Washington D.C.’s Capital Beltway. Read more

  • Fancy comfort

    Fancy comfort

    It was quiet when we went for lunch at The Peacock in Chelsworth, on a friend’s recommendation. However, I definitely got the impression that even if it had been crowded we would have received the same friendly, attentive and relaxed service. The Peacock is kind of fancy, inasmuch as it serves some highly prepared plates, Read more

  • Have you heard the news?

    Have you heard the news?

    Since the 1940s, when big bands were last big business, few of them have had any longevity. The orchestras of global stars like Count Basie, Duke Ellington or Glen Miller continued to perform (and in those cases still exist today, long after the deaths of their founders), but today they mostly exist as educational or Read more

  • Eating the world

    Eating the world

    Not many of us, I suspect, think of the British Empire much in terms of food. I certainly didn’t, before reading Lizzie Collingham’s book, The Hungry Empire. I mean, I was certainly aware of the economic importance of sugar and tea, and the horrific human cost of producing the former in the West Indies with Read more