What do the good guys do when their failure to win is pointed out to them? That’s the question I grapple with (or gum on, toothlessly) in this post (usual disclaimers apply). Readers of a nervous disposition, who are happy in their own public smugosphere, will want to look away now. I recently talked to... Continue Reading →
Raging against those who rage against the machine. On Chomsky, Michael Mosley, book festival sponsorships, and climate
Quick half-formed (but hopefully not half-baked) thoughts. The last post I put up on this site was a photo of a wonderful letter Noam Chomsky wrote to me in 1995, in reply to a "how do you keep your hope alive?" plea. It got a lot of traction on Twitter, with lots of likes and... Continue Reading →
Noam Chomsky letter from May 1995
Noam Chomsky is 95, and according to a tweet I just saw, his health "has deteriorated to the point it now prevents him from writing, commenting or participating in the public domain." I put this letter from him up as one miniscule example of just how wonderful -and life-changing - his work (the lectures and... Continue Reading →
Climate, Rishi’s D-day, the Borg and Brexit (no, really)
First things first. If in five years' time anyone thinks that what is aerating everyone today will be remembered as significant, I will eat my hat (1). I think part of our (my) fascination with what is unfolding is only in part a "they cannot be that incompetent, can they?" reaction (2): it is more... Continue Reading →
Climate, Batman and the slap deficit model…
The standard operating assumption of most climate "activists" and pearl-clutchers (1) is that someone In Authority (usually scientists, sometimes "world leaders" or even celebrities) just needs to Tell The Truth and everyone (aka "civil society" or, if you're willing to wear your condescension as a green badge of courage, "the sheeple") will wake up and... Continue Reading →
34… words
Here's the 34 (that number!) words that I've put on a spreadsheet, having already hit 1000 (more of this list, and what I have done with it, later). These words come from various places, including an excellent novel called Melmoth by Sarah Perry, and an equally excellent short story called The Autopsy, by Michael Shea.... Continue Reading →
More piss “We”ak stuff about Saving “Our”selves, from smart people who don’t seem to be able to know better
You don't get to be Chief Scientific Advisor to HMG (His Majesty's Government) if you are a complete dolt. You may be a bit obedient, and/or a bit blinkered (aren't we all?) but you aren't actually actively thick. Part of not being thick, you'd hope, is looking at your worldview, and the (in)actions of people... Continue Reading →
Swans, Ayn Rand, Elon and body parts: latest #canalyomp (5hrs 20mins!?)
tl;dr - review of 8hrs of podcasts, interspersed with pics of Swans and so on. Continue at your own peril Hmm. This took summat out of me. I may not be as young or as fit as I was. (1) Left at 1120, returned 1640, basically non-stop yomping, with 11kgs of coins in the weighted... Continue Reading →
Letter in the Grauniad on Tom Lehrer
Whoop! Online and in the dead tree format version. Like Francis Beckett, I grew up listening to the satirical songs of Tom Lehrer compulsively. In 1992, while on an exchange scholarship at the University of California, Santa Cruz, I nervously approached him in the dining hall at Cowell College. “Mr Lehrer,” I said, “I’ve listened... Continue Reading →
Little blue corvée – on Sunak and the Notional Service plan
The latest astonishing(ish) brainfart to come from the Conservative Party is the re-introduction of National Service. My late father was born in July 1939, and so was in the last or second to last batch to have to do this. He always said it was a complete waste of everyone's time, and the regular army... Continue Reading →
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