John Mitchell

Michael X: A Life in Black and White, by John Williams Poor Michael. His life became a complete mess and in 1975, aged 41, he was hanged for murder in the prison in Port of Spain, Trinidad. One of the victims was his young cousin, Skerritt, a local barber; the other, more sensationally, was an Englishwoman, Gale Benson, daughter of Captain Leonard Plugge, an eccentric Tory MP. This book tells the whole story of Michael’s life and career, concentrating on the late 1960s in London, when he was at the peak of his notoriety. It is fluently written and totally gripping throughout. On one level it is a social comedy, sparkling with celebrity names of rock-stars and the beat-hippy literati.

If you think that you or anyone else knows anything for certain about the universe, or stack of universes or whatever it is, you are probably wrong. I say probably because it is impossible in this world to be certain about anything. The firm ground of reality that progressive thinkers once expected to discover through science has been abolished by science itself, and we are wrapped in the same cloud of unknowing that has enveloped us since the beginning. Uncertainty is our constant condition, but Heisenberg’s recognition of it as a universal principle dismayed the progressives. They should stop worrying, according to Michio Kaku. The further you look into the universe the more interesting and attractive it appears.