Cambirdge

The Cambridge University Press Bookshop do be a gem at Cambirdge. I love the uniform aesthestics and the comprehensiveness of the Cambridge Companions on such a variety of topics in the humanities.

It’s a shame that the Oxford University Press bookshop shut forever some time ago. Blackwell’s does have a nice collection of Very Short Introductions though.

BFI NFT @ London

The BFI is well known for the IMAX theatre, but having recently been to Southbank’s NFT cinemas (NFT standing for National Film Theatre) to watch Mahjong by Edward Yang, I was pleasantly surprised by just how nice the experience was.

I sat in the dead center of the last row of NFT1 and I would wholeheartedly recommend it. The ceiling is never completely dark and you’re always aware that a this really is a shared experience. In contrast to the “shared experience” of the Minecraft movie, you do feel blessed that the people around you respect the arts.

The theatre is not that inclined and so it’s relatively easy for people in your front to block your view–best to sit at the last row so you don’t have to worry about your moving head blocking other people’s view as well. The rows are exceptionally long, perhaps the longest I’ve ever seen, which adds to the grandness of the place. Be sure to go to the loo before.

One could also find a nice review of the BFI NFT by Forbes.

Hong Kong

It was hard not to react to the 13% biggest one day decline in the HS index since 1997. I was just reading The World in War by Niall Freugson:

Yet there was nothing anachronistic about the idea of empire in the 1930s. In a world without free trade, empires offered all kinds of advantages to those who had them. It was undoubtedly advantageous to Britain to be at the centre of a vaststerling bloc with a common currency and commontariffs. And what would Stalin’s Soviet Union have been if it had been confined within the historic frontiers of Muscovy, without the vast territories and resources of the Caucasus, Siberia and Central Asia?