The City Is Blinking

"We found each other. I helped you out of a broken place. You gave me comfort, but falling for you was my mistake." My Dear Melancholy, is the best work by The Weeknd since 2013's Kiss Land. It is possibly even greater than that, but time will tell. It is a dazzling, dizzying and emotionally complex album. Not since The Weeknd confessed his first ever love on Kiss Land, have we felt so connected to him or so beguiled by the sounds that wrap around and consume the listener. There is more introspection and honesty here than on either of Abel's last two albums, and not to run them down for they are both quality works, but there is something incredibly refreshing about the way My Dear Melancholy allows the listener to explore the depths of a soul. There is nothing shiny or pop orientated about this album. And don't get me wrong: I love his Pop R&B, and am glad that he got to explore the kinder, softer sides of his talent. Noir R&B is though what first go...

"I've struggled... a long time with surviving and you... no matter what... you keep finding something to fight for. Now, I know that's not what you want to hear right now, but it's... " " Swear to me. Swear to me that everything you said about the fireflies is true." " I Swear." " Okay." The Last of Us, developed by Kings of Detail and Immersion, Naughty Dog, is one of the most impressive melding of storytelling with compelling gameplay mechanics that I have ever seen. It is a thrilling, brilliant work that gets to something deep about desperation and love and desperate love. Zombies are everywhere, and it takes a Danny Boyle style shift to make them relevant, interesting and most importantly scary again. The Last of Us manages to do this through some stellar creature design and concepts, and most persuasively through telling a story that hooks you from the first to the last. The Last of Us is, along with Max Payne 3 and of c...

When I was at my sickest, I had no hope. No hope for the future, no hope for my present and constantly in pain over my past. When I was at my sickest, I was flirting with some kind of libertarian spin on the world. It was, it seemed to me, all of the good parts of Anarchism with none of the downsides - or to be more accurate, fewer downsides. I am reminded of the great Woody Allen film Everyone Says I Love You, there is some considerable crossover between mental and physical illness and being right wing. I rejected socialism as an assault on our personal freedoms to be as greedy and uncaring as we desire. When I was at my sickest, when I didn't want to leave my room, let alone the house, my life was saved by my family and friends yes, but most of all by the dedicated women and men who made sure that I didn't take the selfish and easy way out, but stuck around to be filled with hope somewhere down the road. I am not going to name my two nurses, but they know who they are, ...