Another week, another blog post about what has (and has not) been achieved in Operation Delardification. For those new - in October 2019 I got on the talking scales and they said "one at a time please." I was 20kgs heavier than I would have guessed - i.e. 150kg. Sure, can blame "obesogenic" environments,and go... Continue Reading →
Weight loss plateau and (not) breaking on through to the other side…
On 28th March I got down to 119 kilos flat (massively dehydrated) and had a fry-up, which I blogged, obvs. And I promised myself I would blog weekly on the weight loss. Oops. I didn't blog last week, and since then I have only got under 120kg twice (so maybe it was an artefact?) HOWEVER,... Continue Reading →
Letter in MEN: You like authoritarianism, go live in North Korea
So one way that anyone to the left of Genghis Khan is baited, when they suggest even the mildest of social democratic reforms is "you like communism so much, go live in Russia". In this letter I thought it might be fun to riff on this. TURNING a blind eye - refusing to look for... Continue Reading →
Academic self-delusion
A while back (as in, I wrote this blog post hot, but didn't post it straight away because I don't want to commit "career" suicide) I attended back-to-back zoom meetings. The first promised to be on a crucial question about how we respond to escalating social, political and environmental crises. All the right theorists got... Continue Reading →
What next for the Police, Crime, Sentencing and Courts Bill?
So, this wretched legislation that will send us further down the slippery slope to you-know-what is slithering its way along to inevitable (?) Assent. But if you're anything like me, the finer points of Parliamentary Procedure are hazy (no matter how much I like Chris Mullin's diaries, or rewatch The New Statesman). A very knowledgeable-about-these-things... Continue Reading →
Letter: Council cowardice on scrutiny endangers us all
Submitted- I have good news and bad news for "Observer, M40", the author of a long letter about Manchester council's inaction on fly-tipping (Viewpoints, 3 April). The good news is that he and she can get together with other citizens who are concerned (or exasperated) about the Council's inaction on rubbish, on air quality (see... Continue Reading →
Kenneth Rexroth – “Facing Extinction” (August 18, 1969)
Kenneth Rexroth was a poet, translator, thinker. Wikipedia page here. I have been reading his essays in "The Elastic Retort" and enjoying them enough to have bought another earlier collection (please don't tell Dr Wifey - she thinks I am addicted to books). There's also a bunch of Rexroth's essays online, and this one, from... Continue Reading →
Accelerating transitions: Elon Musk announces Model TIS, says Model MLP not viable
Scholars of socio-technical transitions and transformations were stunned today as entrepreneur and self-appointed “Techno-king” Elon Musk took sides in a long-running academic debate. Speaking from an undisclosed location (rumoured to be somewhere on Earth, but unconfirmed at present), Musk tweeted The tweet has caused equal parts consternation and delight in the sustainability transitions research network,... Continue Reading →
De-lardification. Milestone: 20 percent of my initial body weight gone… more to come?
Well, the fry-up was bloody fantastic. Here's a pic. This was my reward for getting under 120kg. There's a few milestones in that. One is having lost 30kg - 20 per cent of my initial body weight (150kg in October 2019, which meant I was morbidly obese). Apparently losing 20% of your body weight is... Continue Reading →
Patriarchy persists – what’s a man to do?
On opposite sides of the world, women and not-enough-male allies are rightfully and righteously angry about the failures of state actors to act – at all or enough – around women being raped and murdered. The facts of the UK case is relatively straightforward. On March 2nd a young white woman, Sarah Everard, was kidnapped... Continue Reading →
