PERFORMING ARTS

westendwhingers.wordpress.com
The Whingers, Phil and Andrew, attend most big West End productions and report back. They are brilliantly bitchy wits, with sharp tastes and low boredom thresholds. Three Days of Rain got a thumbs down, not least because it really does rain on stage and they were concerned for the actor getting soaked. Verdict: “Pure theatrical Niagara”.

jessicamusic.blogspot.com
The novelist and journalist Jessica Duchen keeps an informed eye on the music world (she is married to an LPO violinist). Her blog is not comprehensive and has strange biases (she loves Korngold), but compensates with an air of intelligent engagement and nice sense of community.

therestisnoise.com
Some elegant musings but mostly straightforwardly informative stuff from the music critic of The New Yorker, whose acclaimed book of the same name, on classical music in the 20th century, came out last year.

violinist.com/blog
A host site for blogs posted by violinists, with a useful Top Blogs page where the editor posts links to the best recent entries, from all levels of players.

overgrownpath.com
A wide-roving look at all aspects of the classical-music world, from pricing and album covers to reviews and comment.

artsjournal.com/aboutlastnight
Terry Teachout’s blog is about the arts in America, but still of interest here. Recently he noted, for example, that hip-hop wasthe most popular music used as a means of torture; meanwhile, an American railway is trying to drive homeless people out of its stations by subjecting them to classical music.

TECHNOLOGY

blog.wired.com
Blog Central for geeks, this is Wired magazine’s blog compendium. Usually verbose and clunkily written, but addictive and essential for watching technology.

boingboing.net
A “directory of wonderful things” for a global community of 2m-plus digital culture vultures. In an Aladdin’s cave patrolled by the literate opinion-former Cory Doctorow, and Xeni Jardin, the producer of Boing Boing TV, ideas are discussed and gadgets demoed without geek snarkiness.

mashable.com
A breezy pathfinder through the era of Web 2.0, the nerdy tag for interactivity. Founded in Scotland by Pete Cashmore, who now resides in California, aged 22, it reaches 2.4m followers of Facebook, streamed TV and all user-generated media.

bbc.co.uk/blogs/technology
At the BBC’s Dot Life, abundant intelligent comment replaces the prattle that makes most geek blogs unreadable. The British perspective is also refreshing in an American-dominated blogosphere.

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