Art imitating science

I was delighted to get a contact last year from an artist called Cordelia Spalding, who has produced a range of work that was in part inspired by reading A Brief History of Infinity.

Cordelia has an exhibition of her Museum of Infinities running from 15th to 20th and 22nd to 27th of February in the Forum at the Millennium Library in Norwich. If you're in that part of the world it's well worth dropping in and taking a look.

As an added bonus (I hope), I will be there on Friday 26 February, giving a talk on the Brief History of Infinity in the Fusion space from 12.30pm. It's free of charge - just turn up and enjoy.

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Why I hate opera

If I'm honest, the title of this post is an exaggeration to make a point. I don't really hate opera. There are a couple of operas - notably Monteverdi's Incoranazione di Poppea and Purcell's Dido & Aeneas - that I quite like. But what I do find truly sickening is the reverence with which opera is treated, as if it were some particularly great art form. Nowhere was this more obvious than in ITV's 2010 gut-wrenchingly awful series Pop Star to Opera Star , where the likes of Alan Tichmarsh treated the real opera singers as if they were fragile pieces on Antiques Roadshow, and the music as if it were a gift of the gods. In my opinion - and I know not everyone agrees - opera is: Mediocre music Melodramatic plots Amateurishly hammy acting A forced and unpleasant singing style Ridiculously over-supported by public funds I won't even bother to go into any detail on the plots and the acting - this is just self-evident. But the other aspects need some exp...

Murder by Candlelight - Ed. Cecily Gayford ***

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Is 5x3 the same as 3x5?

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