Film director James Cameron has been aaaaallllll over the news recently. It's all deep sea diving this, Titanic that, look at the 14 sea-themed films I've directed etc. The man is OBSESSED with the sea. Maybe he was pier-pressured into it as a child? Perhaps he was floundering in the friends department at school, and codn't think of any other way to make friends. Perhaps a wave - OK, OK I'll stop.
Sea-related jokes aside, I hope you're all aware that James Cameron isn't the first public figure to go by that name. There was another James Cameron about before that sea-obsesser even knew what a a body of saline water that composes a large part of a planet's hydrosphere was; the influential war journalist, in whose memory the annual James Cameron Memorial Lecture is given. Throughout his career Cameron covered such defining events as the Berlin Airlift, Eva Perón in Argentina, the Korean War, the Algerian War, the Six-Day Israeli Egyptian War, the Mau Mau Rebellion in Kenya, the Hungarian uprising against the soviets and the Suez crisis, to name BUT A FEW.
Woah. That's a pretty extensive list, and you can read even more about the incredible career of this war journalist in Michael Nicholson's A State of War Exists, a history of war reporting through a century and a half of conflict journalism – from the Crimea to the Kevlar-wearing, technology-dependent hacks of today, trying desperately to fill the 24-hour rolling news vacuum.
The book launched last night to a fantastic crowd, and designer, Nam, got given a special thanks for his excellent book cover design. INDEED. Make sure you buy the book. You'll have a whale of a time reading it. OK, sorry. I'm going now *waves* Oh god...