Graph theory is the field of mathematics, typically taken to be a pure field, that looks at objects (called graphs) that consist of dots (vertices) connected by lines (edges). It turns out that all of AI and machine learning, in its current paradigm, work by weighting particular paths of a graph that represent something useful, except we tend to give the graph the special name ‘neural network’.

For those who thought Keir Starmer’s government might represent an age where things just get better, it seems they were sadly mistaken.

It appears to me that what is being recognised is that great literature has the ability to convey eternal underlying truths about the world and the people that inhabit it. In this way the difference between great literature and religious scripture is not obvious.

"Ideas need not be true , nor do they need to have ancestral links to our own views, to posses rich instirnsic interest"

The ‘golden barriers’ that humans erect to distinguish themselves from animals are often flimsy. Things like: habitual bipedalism; culture; even tool use. One golden barrier is still glittering: art.

The question at the tip of the tongue of every modern literary critic and readers alike, is whether 21st century poetry is actually any good? Is there space in the canon for 21st century works? Or is everything being produced now just an imitation, or badly adapted version, of what's come before?

Amongst the general public, social mobility efforts have mainly been characterised as focusing on students from disadvantaged socioeconomic backgrounds progressing into top universities and employers; a focus on ‘getting in’ to universities and companies that were traditionally seen as elite.