"In August 1999," he writes, "the American Academy of Pediatrics (AAP) issued guidelines clearly recommending that children under the age of two watch no television or any screen entertainment at all, and that children of all ages should never have a television in their bedroom because television 'can negatively affect early brain development'." Rapid scene changes in children's programmes account for their dwindling attention spans; half-wits and yobs are held up as role-models; large numbers of people are turning up at doctors' surgeries with "telly-belly " - illnesses they believe they share with soap opera stars. His daughter had found a video of a Carry On film and watched it time and time again before her parents got up. And although the Thai had never travelled out of his village, he was copying the breakdancing he'd seen on TV. Television is powerful; these days it can be called many things, very few or them flattering - but dangerous? That's what Sigman contends, and his argument is compelling.
Remotely Controlled by Dr Aric Sigman (VERMILLION £9.99) Who turned Aric Sigman's little daughter into Sid James? Why would a young Thai man in a shell suit dive to the ground before jumping to his feet and shouting "Yo"? These were the sparks that ignited Sigman's suspicion of television. The writing feels less portentous than in some of her earlier novels and the thematic use of photography - placing instances from the history of photography in the narrative, for example - is ingenious Clark deserves a wider audience. It's a feeling she's unable to escape, even as she uproots herself to live with her father in his decaying mansion in Kent. He's about to get married for the second time, to an American divorc? so she keeps the news of the fire from him and falls in with the other relatives in the house, all of whom seem to be guarding some kind of secret. The longer Katherine remains in the house, the greater her paranoia becomes. To everyone else she seems to be in complete control - even though she feels the house to be haunted by the spirit of her dead mother, who was also a photographer An intriguing novel, a mystery of sorts, this book is certainly a departure for Clark.
After three weeks back in London, however, "she arrived home one night in September to find that her flat and darkroom and, with it, all her work and possessions, had been destroyed by fire." Suspicious that her ex-boyfriend might have been behind it, she feels the first pangs of paranoia. It's a straightforward job - not quite her main line of work, which usually involves portraiture, particularly author-portraits - and it passes off unexceptionally. A House of Light by Candida Clark (REVIEW £7.99) Photographer Katherine Clement is sent on assignment to Gabon in West Africa to capture some brochure shots of a luxury hotel. Perhaps this new work will turn this around and bring the "Buddha of the North", as the Zen scholar D T Suzuki called him, the recognition he deserves.Gary Lachman is the editor of 'The Dedalus Occult Reader: The Garden of Hermetic Dreams' (Dedalus 2005). These days, outside Sweden, Swedenborg's science is little known, and his occult adventures, although essential to his less sensational work, may have, as Bergquist argues, brought him only notoriety and disrepute.
