tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-138687122012-02-17T20:50:55.855ZA blog by Yorkshire-based writer and photographer Tim Chapman. <br> The title is borrowed from JK Galbraith, and refers to certain well-established and persuasive economic theories that rely more on hope and imagination than on practical experience or empirical reality.<br> Unless otherwise indicated, all content is copyright Tim Chapman.Tim Chapmanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16453592717592756707noreply@blogger.comBlogger266125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-13868712.post-9506887731543976532011-09-26T12:01:00.000+01:002011-09-26T12:01:30.772+01:00

On Friday 23 September 2011, I attended an event at the British Library titled 'JG Ballard - Further Reflections'. The event marked the end of the Library's 'Out of this world' exhibition, and the opening of the archive of Ballard's manuscripts and papers, donated to the Library in lieu of inheritance tax. The following is incomplete notes from the two hour event. The host Philip Dodd,

Tim Chapmanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16453592717592756707noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-13868712.post-26008601008166713312011-04-25T14:23:00.002+01:002011-04-25T14:29:17.274+01:00

Some photos from a recent trip to Berlin. Film seemed to suit my preconceptions of the city, so I took the old EOS30, a selection of film (including some out-of-date colour and some mono), and a couple of prime lenses (in the event, I shot almost entirely on the 35mm f2). Mostly architecture, art and oddments, as usual.

Tim Chapmanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16453592717592756707noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-13868712.post-53528569757826096092011-03-05T16:21:00.004Z2011-03-09T20:23:42.522Z

Just back from a jaunt to Lanzarote, where we visited many of the locations of an under-rated classic of avant garde cinema, and certainly one of my personal favourites, One Million Years BC. The above Green Lagoon in where Raquel Welch was snatched by the giant pterodactyl.The island is of course also the eponymous setting for one of Michael Houellebecq's minor novels, which forms a natural

Tim Chapmanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16453592717592756707noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-13868712.post-12151561179217770822010-12-19T16:38:00.001Z2010-12-19T16:40:36.904Z

Merry Xmas, all.

Tim Chapmanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16453592717592756707noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-13868712.post-24491912272915220342010-10-24T14:29:00.005+01:002010-10-24T15:26:33.740+01:00

The Kosmopolis 08 international literature fest, based at the Centre de Cultura Contemporània de Barcelona (CCCB) in October 2008, included several events focusing on JG Ballard, to coincide with the venue's 'JG Ballard - Autopsy of the new millennium' exhibition.The main English-language event was a panel discussion titled 'Myths of the Near Future', held on Saturday 25 October at 5pm. The panel

Tim Chapmanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16453592717592756707noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-13868712.post-61857261414483271212010-10-20T09:24:00.001+01:002010-10-20T09:26:17.194+01:00

This review is published in the latest Fortean Times (issue 268).The End of DiscoveryRussell StannardOxford University Press, 2010Hb, 232pp, illos, £14.99, ISBN 978-0-19-958524-3This is a rather curious book from Russell Stannard, former head of physics and astronomy at the Open University and writer of the popular 'Uncle Albert' childrens' books. Superficially, it's a very accessible overview of

Tim Chapmanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16453592717592756707noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-13868712.post-88721797359597846242010-10-15T13:04:00.001+01:002010-10-15T13:05:46.777+01:00

A Croatian delicacy in the early stages of cooking. More from Croatia.

Tim Chapmanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16453592717592756707noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-13868712.post-86177556187603286622010-07-27T14:09:00.002+01:002010-07-27T14:11:20.555+01:00

Some photos from a working trip to the Royal International Air Tattoo the other weekend.

Tim Chapmanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16453592717592756707noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-13868712.post-42192939964732570172010-06-20T14:03:00.000+01:002010-06-20T14:04:22.091+01:00

I've just been reading From Utopia to Apocalypse: Science Fiction and the Politics of Catastrophe by US literature professor Peter Paik. It's a relatively accessible examination of issues in revolutionary and utopian politics as illustrated in some popular works of science fiction. These range from the sublime (Alan Moore's 'Miracleman' and 'Watchmen', Hayao Miyazaki's 'Nausicaä') to the

Tim Chapmanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16453592717592756707noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-13868712.post-30538002574893167762010-05-21T13:40:00.002+01:002010-05-21T13:44:00.213+01:00

This review is published in the latest Fortean Times (issue 263).30-Second Theories: The 50 most thought-provoking theories in sciencePaul Parsons (Editor)Icon Books, 2010Hb,160pp, illos, index, £12.99, ISBN 978-1-1848311-29-930-second review:As the name suggests, this is a potted collection of some key ideas in science, each presented in a few hundred words, plus an even briefer summary, and

Tim Chapmanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16453592717592756707noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-13868712.post-15150967574327719652010-04-20T08:52:00.004+01:002010-04-20T09:06:45.730+01:00

Interesting little review of emissions cap-and-trade schemes by Robert Hahn, the unfortunately titled Tesco Professor of Economics at the University of Manchester, and Robert Stavins of Harvard. The concentrate on the 'independence property' of such schemes, which allows issues of equity and efficiency to be separated for policy-makers - basically, if it holds, it doesn't matter too much how

Tim Chapmanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16453592717592756707noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-13868712.post-72498211590824395362010-03-20T10:54:00.003Z2010-03-20T11:05:55.696Z

It was a lovely bright day the other Saturday, so went for a stroll round the local woods with an old Lubitel TLR (which had mostly been gathering dust since being bought dirt cheap around the time of Perestroika) and some Kodacolor 120 film of the same vintage. Some interesting results, even if some the most interesting were the result of me forgetting to wind on the film.Very basic photography,

Tim Chapmanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16453592717592756707noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-13868712.post-17073766564778149122010-03-08T18:35:00.002Z2010-03-08T18:36:36.339Z

Tim Chapmanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16453592717592756707noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-13868712.post-61306247331216220122010-03-08T15:53:00.002Z2010-03-08T17:55:03.464Z

Thanks to Blogger deciding to scrap their FTP service, this blog is now located at http://blog.2ubh.com/, rather than the old 2ubh.com/view/ address. If you're still at the old place, you should be redirected automatically - if not, or you don't want to wait, click here.For feed subscribers, please update your feed subscriptions to http://blog.2ubh.com/atom.xml. I'm also on the move myself

Tim Chapmanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16453592717592756707noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-13868712.post-54788780395032424402010-02-03T17:14:00.003Z2010-02-03T17:26:30.821Z

The current edition of Envirotech & Clean Energy Investor magazine has a cover feature by myself on renewables project finance:Renewable energy project finance gets a second windLong-term financing for renewable energy projects was all but halted by the credit crunch, but stimulus measures and state-backed investors are helping the market move again.As part of the research for the feature, I

Tim Chapmanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16453592717592756707noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-13868712.post-26951104866992666982010-01-29T10:47:00.003Z2010-01-29T11:07:29.445Z

New research from Dr Horst Feldmann at the University of Bath on relations between the availability of venture capital in various industrial countries, and employment statistics:The study estimates that if venture capital availability in Italy, where it was most difficult to obtain during the sample period, had matched the United States, where it was in best supply, Italy’s unemployment rate

Tim Chapmanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16453592717592756707noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-13868712.post-77288085066967306732010-01-10T13:33:00.006Z2010-01-10T17:37:21.655Z

The following is a letter I've written to the Fortean Times regarding the editorial column in the current issue (258). The FT is a magazine which I've read for close to 20 years, and contributed many book reviews to, and which generally has high standards of factual accuracy and impartiality. This editorial, mostly a summary of 'controversies' around climate change, failed to meet those standards

Tim Chapmanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16453592717592756707noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-13868712.post-41867238633695204702010-01-06T15:28:00.001Z2010-01-06T15:31:03.308Z

In this iciest of new years, you might as well curl up with a good book and hope for sunnier times. A good candidate, if you're at all interested in some of the economics ideas occasionally aired here, would be Tim Jackson's Prosperity without Growth: Economics for a Finite Planet (thanks to publishers Earthscan for the review copy). Based closely on Jackson's report for the Sustainable

Tim Chapmanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16453592717592756707noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-13868712.post-11018974930298363442009-12-18T13:19:00.003Z2009-12-18T13:23:42.023Z

It's not been the most inspiring year all round, so here's hoping for better in the next.

Tim Chapmanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16453592717592756707noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-13868712.post-1462685178305486812009-12-02T09:34:00.002Z2009-12-02T09:47:06.121Z

The above photo by myself has been selected by the rather well known photographer Martin Parr to feature in a new book he's publishing in partnership with the slightly controversial artist Joachim Schmid. Schmid is controversial because his art mainly consists of appropriating work by other photographers, taken from online resources such as Flickr, without credit or regard to copyright. The

Tim Chapmanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16453592717592756707noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-13868712.post-22658153480373808472009-12-01T16:35:00.008Z2009-12-03T10:36:20.909Z

There's lots of stories today based on a study in the British Journal of Psychiatry on high-potency cannabis and the risk of psychosis. All the reports, from the Guardian to the Daily Mail, lead with the same claim: Skunk, the powerful form of cannabis dominating the street drug market, is seven times more likely to cause psychosis than ordinary cannabis, scientists say.Which might be fair enough

Tim Chapmanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16453592717592756707noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-13868712.post-92142347009283570512009-10-29T13:53:00.000Z2009-10-29T13:54:30.440Z

I recently read The No-Nonsense Guide to Global Finance, courtesy of the publishers at New Internationalist. As you'd expect from the title, it's a very digestible overview of the international finance system, starting from what 'money' actually is, through the increasingly weird and wonderful activities of banks, to the root causes and effects of the recent mess. As such, it's a great

Tim Chapmanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16453592717592756707noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-13868712.post-68908027429702947812009-10-20T13:27:00.004+01:002009-10-20T16:42:35.607+01:00

As of this month, I'm working part-time at the University of Sheffield Advanced Manufacturing Research Centre, with the grand title of European Communications Manager. I'll be working across the centre's European research projects, helping write funding proposals and manage the various international academic and industrial partners, through to disseminating and publicising the research once it's

Tim Chapmanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16453592717592756707noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-13868712.post-78125809993447962202009-10-05T16:45:00.003+01:002009-10-05T17:14:14.400+01:00

I'd been meaning to get up to Sheffield's Park Hill estate for a year or more, since first seeing the vast wall of hollowed-out flats while driving by Ponds Forge beneath. There wasn't any great rush - according to recent reports in the Sheffield Star, the project (estimated cost £160m) won't be complete till around 2017. It's three and a half years since I wrote about the plans here.I had a free

Tim Chapmanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16453592717592756707noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-13868712.post-4439884480702872802009-09-22T10:02:00.003+01:002009-09-22T10:14:14.247+01:00

Now, this seems like bullshit. The Sunday Times reports:Roman Abramovich zaps snappers with laser shield[Abramovich's] boat’s most unusual feature is perhaps the anti-paparazzi “shield”.Infrared lasers detect the electronic light sensors in nearby cameras, known as charge-coupled devices. When the system detects such a device, it fires a focused beam of light at the camera, disrupting its ability

Tim Chapmanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16453592717592756707noreply@blogger.com0