Have gotten back into the habit of long (3 to 4 hour plus) walks along the canal, feeding moorhens, ducks, swans and now even geese. There's only so much talking to himself a man can do (into a dictaphone), so podcasts have become the Way Forward. Below are some recommendations from me, but also I... Continue Reading →
Book! Carbon Capture and Storage in the United Kingdom: History, Policies and Politics
This book (title is self-explanatory) has just come out. You can see table of contents etc (and buy it!) here. The history of CCS is (imho) both fascinating and important. CCS has a lot longer history than many of its advocates (and opponents) understand. This book is not the final word on the subject, but... Continue Reading →
750 words: neologisms, foreign muck, medical, etc
I've got a little list. It's of words I hadn't encountered before, or had encountered by had never really got the hang of. It includes made up words ("wangst" is a favourite), medical terms, philosophy, foreign stuff (lots of Japanese, oddly), flora and fauna, and so on. You can see almost all of those words... Continue Reading →
“unworldly men trading in third-hand ideas and verbal trinkets” Ooof.
This from the novel "Bad Timing" (based on a script for a controversial film starring Art Garfunkel, Theresa Russell, Denholm Elliott and Harvey Keitel, directed by Nicolas Roeg. I found myself thinking that if I couldn’t seduce some hyper-intelligent professor from New York then I didn’t know New York, or academics, never having met a... Continue Reading →
On the difficulty of history…
Two great (imo) quotes from two novelists. Laing is doing an Acker-cosplay (and doing it well. Actually, I am being a bit unfair/dismissive. There's more to it than that, but you need to know your Acker (and I don't) to get all the gags). Hartmann's book, which I read maybe 15 years ago is a... Continue Reading →
The sociological function of the sponsors’ speeches at academic workshops
Am listening to one now (1). I do wish I had made a buzzword bingo card. Might have made it more tolerable. Obviously if sponsors are sponsoring something, they have to be given their moment in the bully pulpit. But are they ever going to say anything interesting, that people attending the workshop don't already... Continue Reading →
Two webinars and a podcast – (#UsualRant abt uselessness of most “intellectual” work “for” social movements)
Stop me if you've heard this one before (pro-tip; you have from me, endlessly). People like the sound of their own voices. People who think (or DO) have a lot to say like to say it. They are remarkably incurious about what their audience (the ego-fodder) might know/have to contribute. The hosts of these events... Continue Reading →
Unsayable truths and playing the game
So, Storm Isa is upon us. And BBC Radio 4's 1pm news has some climate adaptation professor on. The announcer asks what needs doing and while the guy alludes to the government not having done stuff in the past, what he doesn't do is come out and say any variation on this: "Look, it's kinda wasting your... Continue Reading →
Oh god, what a waste of time and energy
I am not going to say what it was, but this is the message I left in the chat. "This is all framed so individually and individualistically. In the absence of effective and resilient social movement organisations, there will be this endless boom-and-bust, guilt-spasms followed by burn out. But we are all so thoroughly neoliberalised... Continue Reading →
Cesspit or money-spinner? Depends on your pov
Siggie Freud would have a field day with this Those benefitting from the status quo will act to resist socio-technical change, obvs. One of the "derailing risks" we don't talk about enough... Barles, S. (2014). History of waste management and the social and cultural representations of waste. In The basic environmental history (pp. 199-226). Cham: Springer International Publishing.
marchudson.net 