June 2009: Thought Experiments

Bryan Appleyard is one of the UK's finest journalists, even if he does mistakenly think that Synecdoche, New York is a good film. His provocative and insightful column in the Culture section of the Sunday Times deals squarely with philosophical ideas and invariably invites an involvement with the issues it addresses.

Suitably enough for the thinking man's hack, Appleyard's blog is called Thought Experiments and is our Blog of the Month for June. The writer describes it as a 'blog about ... imaginary ideas - What ifs? and Imagine thats.' But it's a much better piece of work than that unwieldy tagline might suggest.

The archive goes all the way back to March 2006 and there is much of interest to be found. Appleyard is a committed blogger who has written widely on the new form. His blog doesn't operate in a self-absorbed vacuum like many others, but is aware of its place within the blogosphere.' Incidentally that is not a term the writer likes. He prefers his own coinage 'blogspace', believing it to be a 'slightly better word.'

Garan Holcombe