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 the Blog of the Month for June. The writer describes it as a 'blog about ... imaginary ideas - What ifs? and Imagine thats.' But it's much better than that unwieldy tagline suggests.

The archive goes all the way back to March 2006 and there is much of interest. 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 rather discusses other blogs and is aware of its place within the blogosphere,' which incidentally is a word Appleyard doesn't like. He prefers 'blogspace', believing it to be a 'slightly better word.'

© Garan Holcombe 2009

Uploaded May 09