Six of the Best 264

Photo: Julian Osley

"Popular opinion is much more (small ‘l’) liberal than is commonly supposed. It turns out that most of us can relate to a multi-cultural vision of Britain. Most of us are no longer shocked by the Rolling Stones or the Sex Pistols – how can we be when Mick Jagger has a knighthood and Johnny Rotten advertises Country Life butter? Most of us cannot understand why the church is still getting its knickers in a twist about gay marriage. We’ve moved on, further than most politicians or the press realise." Writing on Liberal Democrat Voice, Simon Titley reflects on the Olympic opening ceremony.

The SNP government in Scotland is running secrecy workshops for civil servants, claim the Scottish Liberal Democrats.

Brian Whitmore on Radio Free Europe - Radio Liberty gives the background to the prosecution of Pussy Riot in Moscow: "Pussy Riot isn't really a 'punk band'... And - contrary to popular belief - they didn't actually play a 'concert' in the cathedral."

Open Culture sends us to Andrei Tarkovsky's Voyage in Time: "This rarely seen documentary shows the great Russian filmmaker treading unfamiliar ground as he travels across southern Italy in search of locations for his first film in exile, Nostalghia."

"Automatic supermarket check-outs are a special kind of 'lose-lose technology' where someone loses their source of employment so that a machine can deliver an entirely inferior service." At Computer Weekly Tony Roberts suggests the Luddites had a point and calls for democratic involvement in choices about technology.

Entschwindet & Vergeht visits the Park Hill flats in Sheffield.