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‘A lot of people think they know how to sharpen pencils, but… they don’t.’ Such is the view of David Rees, an artisan pencil-sharpener who’s sharpened some 1,500 No 2 pencils for paying customers. With deadpan humour and shrewd insight, Rees talks the audience through a step-by-step guide to achieving the perfect pencil point, while giving a brief history of the modern pencil and pencil-sharpening tools. Using the undeniably charismatic Rees as his subject, Kenneth Price’s film is a light reflection on the inherent value of care and precision. It’s also a biting send-up of the plethora of portraits proliferating in our artisan-obsessed times.
Director: Kenneth Price
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History of technology
Replicating Shakespearean-era printing brings its own dramas and comedy
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Animals and humans
The wild tale of a young animal keeper, an angry tiger and a torn circle net
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Technology and the self
Why single Chinese women are freezing their eggs in California
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Beauty and aesthetics
Can you see music in this painting? How synaesthesia fuelled Kandinsky’s art
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The ancient world
Petty squabbles and bloody battles – the life of an ancient Roman soldier
18 minutes
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Astronomy
The remarkable innovations inspired by our need to know the night sky
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Knowledge
Why it takes more than a lifetime to truly understand a single meadow
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War and peace
‘She is living on in many hearts’ – Otto Frank on the legacy of his daughter’s diary
12 minutes
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Art
Why Diego Velázquez needed a lifetime to paint his enigmatic masterpiece
31 minutes