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So farewell then, 'ZD'

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In today’s media landscape, a career spanning over 31 years with the same company — or rather, successive companies with ‘ZD’ in their name or portfolio — is, I think, an unusual achievement. What that achievement signifies I’m not sure; a cautious nature, perhaps, along with an enduring ability to turn up regularly (when we had an office), remain competent, not go into management, not break the “4 o'clock rule”* on Friday afternoons, and generally fly under the radar. Whatever, that low-flying but persistent career has now been downed by a ground-to-air missile in the shape of the latest round of layoffs from ZDNET’s current owner, Red Ventures (RV). Grounded, likely permanently at my age, it’s time to reflect. There have been a lot of ‘ZD’ owners since I joined Ziff-Davis back in July 1991, as a Production Editor tasked with helping to launch the UK edition of PC Magazine (see the first two issues, above). We were visited by the legendary Bill Ziff himself in the early days, who ...
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Fenton, photography and an ancestor

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Mention the word 'Fenton' today and, unless you're talking to a photography aficionado , you'll probably bring to mind a deer-chasing labrador and its owner's despairing entreaties. However, Roger Fenton is an important figure in the history of photography, renowned for his Crimean War pictures that effectively invented the field of photo-journalism. Among them is a picture of my great great grandfather, who was killed in that war aged 31. Roger Fenton (1819-1869) and his 'Photographic Van' in the Crimea, 1855 John McLellan was born in 1824 in the Barony district of Glasgow into a family of weavers -- the cloth trade being the chief source of employment in the city in those days. He too might have been destined for a life in the cotton factories, but for a recruiting party from the 30th Regiment of Foot , which turned up in the summer of 1842. The 18-year-old John signed up, and a year later found himself in Ireland -- shortly before the Great Famin...
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In praise of: Richard Thompson

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Does Richard Thompson need more praise? Probably not, given that, despite never hitting the heights of commercial success, he's widely revered as one of the very best guitarists of his (or any other) generation, and as a superb songwriter with a distinctly quirky worldview. Still, having first encountered RT's guitar playing with Fairport Convention in the late 1960s and seen many live performances between 1975 and the present day, I feel like airing my own thoughts. The first Fairport album I recall hearing is their third; 1969's Unhalfbricking. It opens with Thompson's Genesis Hall, a remarkably mature and somewhat world-weary song for such a youthful songwriter. The standout track is the epic, freeform A Sailor's Life featuring guest violinist Dave Swarbrick -- a collaboration that inspired the band, with Swarbrick fully on-board, to pursue the melding of traditional music with rock instrumentation (something they perfected with their next record). The int...
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Sharks have more to fear from us

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The sight of a shark's dorsal fin slicing through the water is guaranteed to set most human hearts thumping, thanks to a certain Spielberg movie and the fact that shark attacks are widely reported by the media. However, horrific incidents such as the recent one at Muriwai Beach in New Zealand are mercifully rare. There are around 400 known species of shark, although new ones are still being described and (as we shall see) many others are threatened with extinction. They range in size from the gargantuan 12-metre-plus (plankton-feeding) whale shark ( Rhincodon typus )   to the diminutive  dwarf lanternshark ( Etmopterus perryi ), a Caribbean species that's two orders of magnitude smaller at under 20 centimetres: Extremes of shark: whale shark (left); dwarf lanternshark (right) Only a handful of shark species are known have attacked humans, and when attacks do occur the unfortunate humans are rarely 'prey' so much as the victims of mistaken identity or exploratory...
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