In January 1992 the first confirmed discovery of an exoplanet was made. Paul F Cockburn looks at how the search for alien worlds has progressed in a quarter of a century. The idea of alien worlds circling distant stars is hardly new; as far back as 1584, Italian philosopher Giordano Bruno suggested space was filled […]
About paulfcockburn
Edinburgh-based freelance magazine journalist, specialising in equality issues (disability and/or LGBT+), popular science, and arts & culture.Author Archive | paulfcockburn
Double Trouble
Revenge thriller The Library Suicides was an important personal project to director Euros Lyn, not least because his debut feature film was an opportunity to tell an unusual story in his native language. How did you get involved with a film adaptation of Fflur Dafydd’s best-selling Welsh-language novel Y Llyfgell? Fflur contacted me; she was […]
Crash Land (Review)
CRASH LAND BY DOUG JOHNSTONE • (Faber & Faber) 3 November 2016 An iconic character through much Western fiction, but especially crime noir, is the “femme fatale”—the beautiful, mysterious, seductive woman who turns the hero’s life upside down. It’s not an archetype Doug Johnstone, exploring the edges of domestic noir, has used before, but his approach […]
Beck Volume 2 (Review)
BECK – THE SERIES, VOLUME 2 (Nordic Noir) Available now. “A person doesn’t have to be evil just because they do evil things.” It’s precisely the subtle philosophical maturity that exemplifies the measured, contained approach that Swedish detective drama Beck invariably displays. Packaged for the UK as the second volume of the Beck series, these […]
Going Underground
It wasn’t the most auspicious of beginnings. Within a few hours of the Glasgow District Subway first opening its doors, on 14 December 1896, the whole system was massively over-crowded with—according to The Glasgow Herald—“a great rush of all classes”. Many of these passengers were not using the new underground railway to travel speedily between […]
Starting from Scratch
When it comes to general health matters, prevention—as your doctor may well tell you—is more effective than cure. Following the same line of reasoning, it’s better—and we don’t just mean cheaper—to make sure that any potential new home matches your access needs before it’s built, rather than having to spend additional time and money “renovating” […]
Home Adaptations
Paul Young (and before him Marvin Gaye) once sung about how home was wherever he lay his hat. However, choice and location of headwear notwithstanding, for most of us “home” is actually somewhere much more important. The American psychologist Susan Clayton has gone as far as saying that, for many of us, our homes are […]
