John Vivian Drummond Nettles, OBE, is an English actor and author. He is best known for his starring roles as detectives in the crime drama television series Bergerac (1981–1991) in the title role, and Midsomer Murders (1997–2011) as Detective Chief Inspector Tom Barnaby. He has also narrated several television series.
Paul Francis Jennings was an English humourist and author. After his Catholic education, Jennings served in World War II. For many years he wrote a column, Oddly Enough, in British newspaper The Observer. Many collections of his work were published, including The Jenguin Pennings by Penguin Books in 1963. He also wrote popular children's books including The Great Jelly of London, The Hopping Basket, and The Train to Yesterday.
The Idler is a bi-monthly magazine, devoted to its ethos of 'idling'. Founded in 1993 by Tom Hodgkinson and Gavin Pretor-Pinney, the publication's intention is to improve public perception of idling.
The Ukulele Orchestra of Great Britain (UOGB) is a British musical ensemble founded in 1985 by George Hinchliffe and Kitty Lux as a bit of fun. The orchestra features ukuleles of various sizes and registers from soprano to bass. The UOGB is best known for performing musically faithful but often tongue-in-cheek covers of popular songs and musical pieces from a wide variety of music genres taken "from the rich pageant of western music". The songs are often performed with a reinterpretation, sometimes with a complete genre twist, or well known songs from multiple genres are seamlessly woven together. Songs are introduced with light hearted deadpan humour, and juxtaposition is a feature of their act, the members of the orchestra wear semi-formal evening dress and sit behind music stands, in a parody of a classical ensemble.
Gavin Edmund Pretor-Pinney is a British author, known for his books The Cloudspotter's Guide and The Wavewatcher's Companion.
The legacy of absinthe as a mysterious, addictive, and mind-altering drink continues to this day. Though its psychoactive effects and chemical makeup are contested, its cultural impact is not. Absinthe has played a notable role in the fine art movements of Impressionism, Post-impressionism, Surrealism, Modernism, Cubism and in the corresponding literary movements. The legendary drink has more recently appeared in movies, video, television, music, and contemporary literature. The modern absinthe revival has had a notable effect on its portrayal. It is often shown as an unnaturally glowing green liquid demonstrating the influence of contemporary marketing efforts.
Will Hodgkinson is a journalist and author from London, England. He is the chief rock and pop critic for The Times newspaper and contributes to Mojo magazine. He has written for The Guardian, The Independent and Vogue. Hodgkinson presents the Sky Arts TV show Songbook, in which he interviews contemporary songwriters.
Asperitas is a cloud formation first popularized and proposed as a type of cloud in 2009 by Gavin Pretor-Pinney of the Cloud Appreciation Society. Added to the International Cloud Atlas as a supplementary feature in March 2017, it is the first cloud formation added since cirrus intortus in 1951. The name translates approximately as "roughness".
Slow parenting is a parenting style in which few activities are organised for children. Instead, they are allowed to explore the world at their own pace. It is a response to concerted cultivation and the widespread trend for parents to schedule activities and classes after school; to solve problems on behalf of the children, and to buy services from commercial suppliers rather than letting nature take its course.
Mark Vernon is a British psychotherapist and writer.
In the afternoon of 23 April 2007, Ray Bowyer, a pilot flying south towards the island of Alderney in the English Channel sighted unidentified flying objects. He reported the sighting to an air traffic controller who told him that a second pilot had seen something similar. In Bowyer's report to the British Civil Aviation Authority he said he saw two bright, stationary objects. Two passengers on Bowyer's aircraft said that they saw unusual coloured lights at the same time. Proposed explanations for the sighting have included earthquake lights and sun dogs.
The Wavewatcher's Companion is a 2010 science book by Gavin Pretor-Pinney.
Darryl Cunningham is a British author and cartoonist who has written the books Science Tales, Psychiatric Tales, The Age of Selfishness and Billionaires: The Lives of the Rich and Powerful.
Flea Market Music is an American company which publishes and sells ukulele-related books and music.
Kelvin Kirkwood Keech was an American actor, producer and old-time radio announcer.
Edmund Soon-Weng Yong is a British-American science journalist and author. In 2021, he received a Pulitzer Prize for Explanatory Reporting for a series on the COVID-19 pandemic. He is the author of two books: I Contain Multitudes: The Microbes Within Us and a Grander View of Life (2016) and An Immense World: How Animal Senses Reveal the Hidden Realms Around Us (2022).
James Webbe Tobin (1767–1814) was an English abolitionist, the son of a plantation owner on Nevis. He was a political radical, and friend of leading literary men.
Liz Hodgkinson is an author and journalist who has written more than 50 books. Her books have been translated into over 20 languages. She has also written articles for most of the major British national newspapers in London, and for magazines for women. She has taught journalism for a decade.
John Hodgkinson is an English actor. He is known predominantly for his stage work with the Royal Shakespeare Company and for his performance as Tom Kettle in The Ferryman, for which he has been nominated as Best Actor in a Supporting Role in the 2018 Laurence Olivier Awards. In 2011, he was named The Journal's Performing Artist of the Year for the part of Chris Mullin in Michael Chaplin's A Walk on Part with the Live Theatre Company.
Critique of work or critique of labour is the critique of, and/or wish to abolish, work as such, and to critique what the critics of works deem wage slavery.
