Reminder to self:
Talk about Isabel Fall's Helicopter Story, and J. G. Ballard's The Killing Ground.
JG Ballard on #writing about the present
"The crusader crosses of St George, the hair clay and bloviating of GB News and the live-streaming, selfie-gurning, hate-spewing of Tommy Robinson – their spirit is better captured in this last fiction by the late Ballard than in many more recent and more breathless titles clogging up the annual best-of lists."
https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2025/dec/18/sickness-britain-novel-20-years-ago-jg-ballard
#England #Fiction #JGBallard #NigelFarage #TommyRobinson #Immigration #Asylum
The racism, the predatory politics, the banality and cruelty: we struggle to make sense of it, but JG Ballard foretold everything we are living through now, says Guardian columnist Aditya Chakrabortty
The racism, the predatory politics, the banality and cruelty: we struggle to make sense of it, but JG Ballard foretold everything we are living through now, says Guardian columnist Aditya Chakrabortty
The racism, the predatory politics, the banality and cruelty: we struggle to make sense of it, but JG Ballard foretold everything we are living through now, says Guardian columnist Aditya Chakrabortty
The Wind from Nowhere is a science fiction novel by English author J. G. Ballard. Published in 1962, it was his debut novel. He had previously published only short stories.
The novel was the first of a series of Ballard novels dealing with scenarios of natural disaster. Here, civilization is reduced to ruins by prolonged worldwide hurricane-force winds... - Wikipedia
Ballard disowned his first novel as "hack work" but I feel, whilst far from his best, it is still a worthwhile work containing many of his future themes. Read in a beautiful Penguin sci-fi edition with an Alan Aldridge cover.
#JGBallard #PenguinBooks #Reading #SciFi #Disaster #AlanAldridge
Ultravox! is the debut studio album by British new wave band Ultravox. It was recorded at Island Studios in Hammersmith, London in the autumn of 1976 and produced by Ultravox and Steve Lillywhite with studio assistance from Brian Eno. It was released on 25 February 1977 by Island.
Lyrically the album is mainly about the band's environment, living in London in the mid-1970s, with lyricist John Foxx being heavily influenced by the writings of J. G. Ballard.
...Dave Thompson, writing for AllMusic, opined "..The quintet certainly had their antecedents – Hawkwind, Roxy Music and Kraftwerk to name but a few – but still it was the group's 1977 eponymous debut's grandeur (courtesy of producer Brian Eno), wrapped in the ravaged moods and lyrical themes of collapse and decay that transported '70s rock from the bloated pastures of the past to the futuristic dystopias predicted by punk." - Wikipedia
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CFLDo5fT9WI&list=PLijPiy4xM0hchaORwSGezEVR6WI9HdxPN&index=8
#ultravox #johnfoxx #music #BrianEno #JGBallard #newwave #violin
“I believe in the power of the imagination to remake the world, to release the truth within us, to hold back the night, to transcend death, to charm motorways, to ingratiate ourselves with birds, to enlist the confidences of madmen.”
― J.G. Ballard
Arthur David Spota (@adaspota.bsky.social)
https://bsky.app/profile/adaspota.bsky.social/post/3lqe5yyddo22d
> What Does J.G. Ballard Look Like? Mike Halliwell ~ Internal Landscapes Images of Inner Space, Illustrating the work of J.G. Ballard The Realization of Dreams #JGBallard #Ballardian
Lost #JGBallard #shortstory:
Happy hour at the local Wetherspoons considered as a downhill motor race
mookraker
JD
KB
Colin Macleod
Opinion | The Guardian US
Andi Chorley
Maronno Winchester 
Drift of Signifieds