John Baker’s Blog

BLDG BLOG reports (with photographs) on the bookshop constructed inside a converted Dominican church in Maastricht, which has won an architectural interiors prize.
. . . it achieves a weirdly ironic overlap in which two cultural spaces, both on the verge of extinction, at least in Western Europe – and I’m referring here to the [...]

In this 1957 film by Ingmar Bergman, a Knight (Max von Sydow with bleached hair) returning from the crusades is shadowed by the figure of Death.
The Seventh Seal has been considered one of the masterpieces of cinema for a long time. But I wondered if I would find it a little embarrassing, its imagery comical, [...]

This novel would make an excellent gift for any young people you know who are thinking of becoming missionaries.
As night fell, burning torches were set on wooden tripods and the young men raised a song. The elders sat in a circle and the singers went round singing each man’s praise as they came before him. [...]

1. Why do you blog?
I started writing for the internet in 1997, I guess it was pretty much blogging even back then. Initially I put together a website as part of project for an IT post-grad, which I then looked into setting up properly after the project was done.
The reasons for keeping going are mixed. [...]