On 29 November 2007 Chris Green wrote: >Well, this oughta get everyone howling again. An "expert panel" >was selected by the Times to select just five book that >"explain Britain." Freud was second, just two places ahead >of Darwin. Less controversially, Lewis Carroll was 7th. :-)
http://entertainment.timesonline.co.uk/tol/arts_and_entertainment/books/art icle2871028.ece Perhaps Chris might explain what he means by his expectation that what he cites will get "everyone howling" again [sic], and also tell us the previous occasion when TIPSters were "howling". Minor point: This article is in the Sunday Times, not The Times -- the papers have separate editors and journalists, and are editorially independent of each other. I've checked through the article to see who make up the "expert panel". The list is as follows: Roger Scruton, Daisy Goodwin, Mary Beard, Nicholas Kenyon, AA Gill, Nicholas Hytner, David Kynaston, Cosmo Landesman, Waldemar Januszczak, Robert Hewison, Dominic Sandbrook, John Gray, Rod Liddle, John Cornwell, Simon Jenkins, John Carey, Bryan Appleyard. Can any TIPSter identify a single one of these "experts"? I can tell you it's a motley crew, ranging from a television "personality" to a philosopher, including journalists, a music critic, a modernist Art critic, a restaurant critic and humorist, a couple of academics and so on. Not a single scientist among them, by the way. (I had to check up on Google for three of the names.) That these are described as "experts" for the purpose of choosing books that "explain Britain best" says much about some aspects of the current standards of even upmarket newspapers in the UK. That the first four say virtually nothing about *Britain* is a measure of the fatuousness of this project. From newspapers to the BBC, the media in Britain seem to be obsessed with lists -- you'll be fascinated to know that when the BBC ran a poll to choose "Great Britons" in 2002 (preceded by programmes devoted to the top ten early favourites), Princess Diana came third, ahead of Darwin, Shakespeare, Newton, Elisabeth I, Nelson and Cromwell. (Of course, Elisabeth I would move up the chart if the poll were to be conducted now, seeing as there have recently been two movies featuring Cate Blanchett as the Virgin Queen. -:) ) Allen Esterson Former lecturer, Science Department Southwark College, London http://www.esterson.org ---
