The phlogiston of astrobiology
Are you in the zone? If so, why? To start at the beginning, you do know what phlogiston is, or was, I hope? Nowadays we accept that when something burns, it is swallowing oxygen. But before oxygen was...
View ArticleBuried treasure in SE14
The theatre is not a regular preoccupation of this blog, but don’t panic. I don’t have an opinion about whether you should see the Aldwych version of Wolf Hall and Bring Up the Bodies. But who could...
View ArticleMan swaps Wandle for Gipping…..
One of the reasons for my recent absence from the Blogosphere is that I have been moving house. So far, so ordinary, but it has certainly been educational for me. So what have I learned by abandoning...
View ArticleHow many words?
I am very fond of the Thirty Million Words initiative. It uses the power of adult-child speech to give kids a better start in life, by encouraging people to speak more to children and build their...
View ArticleMPs get it right…… (yes, no joke)
What could be more heartening than a Parliamentary vote that actually gets something right? For me, it might be a Parliamentary vote that also makes clear the limited power of the Church of England and...
View ArticleThis site is too marvellous for its own good.
That feeling that something you’re involved with is less great than it ought to be is familiar to all of us. But this week I found out the hard way that I had done the precise opposite, creating...
View ArticleIs it a bird? Is it a plane?
Although it happened in 2012, I have only just caught up with this astounding footage from Norway in which a skydiver in flight apparently films a meteorite in mid-air. Well worth a look. It raises...
View ArticleFood, glorious food
A rare parade of big numbers was on the march on Monday, at the launch of the Leading Food 4.0 report from the National Centre for Universities and Business. They were almost striking enough to...
View ArticleEditing skills “desirable” for editor? Who knew?
British journalists are prone to getting excited about big job opportunities in the US. After all, the major publishers there (NY Times, Bloomberg…) tend to look over here when they want to find top...
View ArticleSeveneves: big but worth it.
Neal Stephenson’s new novel, Seveneves, has many obsessions, but it has one feature that British readers in particular will find endearing. Stephenson has an informed interest in the explorer Ernest...
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Planet 9 (but only for the deserving)
In 1781, the Anglo-German astronomer William Herschel discovered the planet Uranus, an astonishing addition to the known universe. He became Sir William, and global renown followed. In 1846, Neptune...
View ArticleMassive surge upmarket!
Usually the many attempts to place spam comments in this feed are all advertising that little blue pill. Today, however, I deleted one offering award-winning university essays in a range of subjects....
View ArticleSunny at last
As some of you know, I have been droning on hypocritically for years about how other people ought to use renewable energy, while living the life of a mains-connected electricity and gas consumer. Well,...
View ArticleThe Three-Body Problem: a step too far?
I started reading the science fiction of Cixin Liu for a simple if tragic reason. I have always preferred my Iain Banks with added M, and when both of his voices were silenced as inappropriately as...
View ArticleA more rounded view
Do you ever encounter those maddening people who insist that medieval folk thought the world was flat? There’s really no telling them of the swathe of evidence (eg Columbus’s calculation of the...
View Article50 Years and counting….
As the saying goes, It Was 50 Years Ago Today. Everyone who was alive around Merseyside in 1967 has their Sergeant Pepper story. Here’s mine. Oddly, it relates mainly to my late father Leslie. He was...
View ArticleIt was 50 years ago today – the most misreported event in sports history?
.. on December 9, when I was lucky enough to witness an undying talking point in sports history. The place: Anfield, of course. Me, my father and 39,674 others were here for Liverpool v Leeds United....
View ArticleCash or card?
I am not much of a joiner of single-purpose campaigns. But here’s one I’d maybe pay money to support. And that would be appropriate, because the subject is money, and to be precise, coins and notes....
View ArticleGetting physical in Da Lin
What do you know about Taiwan? Well, it’s where one-time communist Chiang Kai-Shek fled in 1949 after defeat by Mao, to become a thorn in the flesh of mainland China and darling of the US right. It’s...
View Article10-22 and all that
If you are at all involved in the world of higher education and research, you have probably heard of Skolkovo. A literal green-field site on the western edge of Moscow, it is home to post-Soviet...
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