Following politics is like going to the cinema – only in every movie the character you root for either turns out to be a super-villain or dies in some grotesque and unwelcomed manner. If every movie was like that, you’d just stop going to the movies. So I’ve stopped going to politics as each episode has become as predictable as a CBS police procedural except the bad guys always win – and never in a glamorous, sexy way we can secretly admire. As the “no-we can’t” presidency completes its first year in America, and the “it can only get worse” government ascends to power in Britain, it’s time for me to tune into another station on the national zeitgeist.

I got into politics because I was into ideas. And it’s back to ideas that I’m going to return. Often these ideas will be political ideas but these have happier story lines that the individuals in office who abuse them. So from now on I’ll be using this blog to start digging into the renaissance of the ‘idea’ in American popular culture and using my background in sociology to poke at these ideas and see which ones push back or pop.