The prophetic and so very cool young Bob Dylan

A Hard Rain’s A-Gonna Faallllll! Yes it will.

April 1, 2013

In his early 1960s anthem, ‘A Hard Rain’s A-Gonna Fall’, Bob Dylan sings about journeying through a gloomy world where his protagonist “stepped in the middle of seven sad forests, and was out in front of a dozen dead oceans”. He also waxes lyrical about lots and lots of really hard rain.

Sound familiar? It should. Add to this mixture drought, increasing temperature, sea-level rise and other related issues, and it’s almost like Dylan’s song predicted the impacts of climate change happening right now around the world.

Could Nostradamus have predicted this?

October 1, 2012

Late at night in his cluttered 16th Century Parisian quarters… could Nostradamus, the bearded and controversial seer, ever have predicted the devastating impacts of climate change?

Non, je ne le pense pas. Translation: I think not.

Of Hybrid Monkeys and Climate Change Sceptics

June 27, 2012

What do hybrid spider monkeys and climate change sceptics have in common? They’re both endangered species.

What’s different about them? We really really want to save the shy spider monkey; climate sceptics can’t vanish quick enough.

Orville! Wilbur!… Put Down those Goggles!

June 27, 2011

For those born before the intrepid Wright Brothers snapped goggles to their heads and took to the skies, it took six grueling weeks by stream-ship to get from London to Sydney. Thanks to groovily-named Orville and Wilbur, today it takes 24 hours.

Sure, it’s quicker, but is it better?

Climate Change Skepticism Grows but Facts Same

December 27, 2010

Unless it’s faith we’re talking about, humans are inherently skeptical – especially when it comes to science. Brilliant minds have been battling the oft’ irrational public opinion for time immemorial, with guys like Aristotle, Galileo and Darwin risking their necks in the name of logic.

Things haven’t changed much…

Pop culture stop

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Like everyone else, I know how this movie ends.

And it's just really gross. But kind of cool too.

It's based on a guy called Aron Ralston, a young adrenalin junkie who goes canyoning in the wilds of Utah, solo - without telling a soul.

Spoiler alert: early on in the film Aron, played by James Franco, dislodges a boulder, plunges down a crevice, and gets pinned by the same rock.

And that rock ain't going nowhere, no-how.

Directed by Danny Boyle of Shallow Grave, Trainspotting and Slumdog Millionaire fame, the film is based on Ralston's book Between a Rock and a Hard Place.

A title that sums up his gory tale, and the movie's story arc.

Boyle is awesome at branding his films with powerful imagery geared towards a hyperactive media-crazed instant gratification audience.

From the kick-off the movie goes full-throttle as Aron recklessly sets off on his adventure: hurtling down the highway in a beat up car while his headphones blast pulsing beats.

“Boyle has a real knack for branding his films with powerful imagery geared towards a hyperactive media-crazed instant gratification audience.”

Within the same heartbeat he's on his mountain bike as the stunningly bleak mars-like Utah landscape flashes by.

He meets some babes. Shows them an subterranean lake only accessible by slipping down a groin-tinglingly narrow rift. Then he's off, pumped on nature, fresh air and the rush of living life to its fullest...

Then Aron slips. He's now trapped.

Frozen in time and space by nature: the drug that has always pushed him to dizzying heights.

Camera zooms on Aron's stunned face and the Movie title appears for the first time: 127 Hours.

Brake is applied heavily now for momentum-loving viewers - or is it?

Sometimes this film was hard to watch (and for a few nerve-snapping moments - unbearable).

Franco does great credit to Aron's gritty determination, and Boyle doesn't rely on sentimentality or melodrama.

It's like a companion piece to Sean Penn's Into the Wild, but thankfully here the hero survives.

Like Into the Wild's care-free hero, for Aron it's the people in his life, and the premonition of his future son, which gives him the courage and down-right ballsy-ness to, literally, disarm himself to break free.

So yeah - he gruesomely and noisily hacks off his own limb. But as he's scrambles out of the crevasse, one arm down, he looks back at the rock and says 'Thank you'.

Then he snaps a selfie of his dismembered hand with his membered hand.

Through the entire film Aron stays level-headed and never loses his great love of nature and even the very rock that so nearly entombed him.

This is a powerful film, and a tribute to the importance of human love and the brutal and unforgiving beauty of the wild.

“Through the entire film Aron stays level-headed and never loses his great love of nature and even the very rock that so nearly entombed him. ”