The Unboxed Certainty of Science

The Uncertain Science of Boxes

Burgeoning Demographics

It was around the time I was standing in the shower on my fifth beer of the evening that it occurred to me that the secret of mobile app development is probably in the discovery of untapped demographics.

The question isn't so much 'what do people need?', but 'who is capable of using a smartphone that doesn't already have a dating app specifically tailored to their needs?'

The answer is pretty clear, and as it turned out I had already thrown together some concept art to reinforce a joke I had made early that evening, which in hindsight was probably the reason I was drinking beer in the shower wondering if an otter could even use a smartphone.

The Peripheral by William Gibson

I recently picked up The Peripheral by William Gibson, and a weird sort of thing struck me. It feels almost Dickian, by which I mean that it is on its way to the Philip K. Dick flavour zone.

It's turning out to be a weird experience for me. I love both of these authors, and not to suggest in any way that Gibson is losing his own personal flavour, but, the story feels like a polished PKD story. It feels like their worlds colliding.

Saying all of that though, there are distinct elements, and even ideas that feel like bolder versions of things one might've seen in Gibson's very early short stories. The ones in which the page looks right up at you, stares you right in the eye, and says, 'This is made up', but you end up meeting it all the way as it spins wildly, because it's good.

His first trilogy, that started with Neuromancer, is bold and reckless. Jammed with invented terms, mature themes, and cartoon vibrancy, it's completely unsubtle and unapologetic. It's brazen as fuck. Virtual Light and its sequels, on the other hand, are dirtier. Everything feels more real. Their world spins ever so slightly out of sync with our own, where Pattern Recognition is populated with characters that are believable corporate fantasy in a world that spins perfectly in sync just on the other side of the sun. The Peripheral is just the beginning of next world.

It feels more of a classic science fiction than he's written long form before, but it's all still distinctly him. They're his details. They're his characters. It's his world. More than that though, you can feel it in the words. Dick never spun like this.

Go see Matilda The Musical!

I think most of us love Roald Dahl. Most people I know have a favourite. Some people have favourites. Mine is Matilda.

It was one of if not my very favourite book as a child. It was certainly one of the only ones that I continued to love uninterrupted throughout my adolescence and into adulthood. I read it nearly every year. No, look, to be honest, it's more like every second year these days. Maybe more than that. Two out of three years I'll read it. I'm pretty sure that's right.

Anyway, there have been advertisements about for Matilda The Musical at the Lyric Theatre, and last night I was lucky enough to be invited to see it, which I momentarily considered turning down due to a recent lack of sleep, but I'm going to be 100% with you, it's better than sleep.

It's better than a lot of things.

Look, I'm pretty much the perfect audience for this sort of thing. Live theatre, musicals, children's books, the source material in particular, the wider works of Roald Dahl, Tim Minchin, and Dennis Kelly (who I only knew as the writer and creator of Utopia), and generally anything that I can later sing along to are all things that I love. Look at my face. LOVE!

So, bias? Maybe, but the audience around me seemed diverse in a great many ways. One had this weird nineties synthetic rainbow cap on, which I'm not sure they still make. So, time travellers probably are turning up for this.

The songs are clever and naughty in a way that makes you think that Tim Minchin wallows in Roald Dahl books osmosising their very essence. Words piled together in intelligent, hopeful, revolting ways that please all the most important word receptors. There are amazing things available to you here.

But, words and music can't be there on their own. They need to find their way to you, and it is done well. The performance and production is simply extraordinary. At no point was I not entirely enchanted by what was going on in front of me.

Every character is exquisitely portrayed. Loving every character is easy. It will just happen. Trunchbull is monstrous, the Wormwoods are disgusting, and the children are cheeky, and they're all wonderful.

This is the way I will always remember Matilda.

You want this. You really, really do. Book tickets! It is far, far better than sleep.


Also, a big shoutout to my lovely brother for being sick last night, so that I was able to sit in his seat, eat his nibbles, and watch the show. Anytime you need me to help out when you're sick, just let me know. More than happy to pick up the slack.