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Showing posts from April, 2017

Raymond Tallis: A "philosopher" who is either ignorant or in bad faith.

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I was listening to the BBC Start The Week podcast a few weeks ago. It was called "Dissecting Death", and was about approaches to death. Halfway through this bloke, introduced as a "philospher", Raymond Tallis came on. I've heard him waffle on other programs before. He just published a 700 page (yes seven hundred page ) book about time and lamentation. The other guests on the program were intelligent informative and interesting: Mark O'Connell talked about transhumanists, Carla Valentine talked about life and death behind mortuary doors, and Laura Yunbridge spoke about late works of artists. But all Tallis could say was: "Physicists have shrunk time to little 't'. So it can be squared or used as a denominator in an equation. Well you'd never do that to an afternoon..." Now why did a "philospher" say such stupid things? I can think of only answers: Answer 1) He is ignorant of how time is still

Who was the marketing genius who got to associate SEAT with crime, death and drug dealing?

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Crime dramas on ITV1 are currently sponsored by SEAT. But who was the marketing genius who persuaded SEAT to associate their good looking cars with death, crime, missing persons and drug dealing? Take Vera for example. Just before the start of an episode, and at the end of each commercial break, there is an ad which associates a SEAT car with a crime scene. All the ads are shot at nighttime. Some examples I can remember: A woman in white walking in the middle of the road picked out by the SEAT's headlights. A message to a missing mother (really? a missing mother?) on the smartphone (presumably connected to the SEAT's electronics system). A nasty looking package lying in the dark near a white SEAT car. A man who drops something as he closes the boot of his SEAT car, probably a clue after his murder in a few minutes time. Surely they could have come up with something more reassuring. Something which suggests that SEAT cars are solidly reliable and will keep you safe even