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Sunday, 30 June 2013

Lennox's non-fairy tale?

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Oxford University Professor, John Lennox mumbled some incoherent nonsense (it is reported, e.g. here and here , and much better here ) at ...
1 comment:
Saturday, 29 June 2013

Eating well in England

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I ate very well in England, both last night and this lunch time.  However, the words of W Somerset Maugham come to mind: ...
Friday, 28 June 2013

Right Royal Shame!

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In this week's news we hear once again that the Queen is going to get a 5% pay rise next year, while everyone else working for the gover...
Thursday, 27 June 2013

Taking rice cereusly

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Yes that was a deliberate mis-spelling, and yes it was meant to sound like 'seriously'. Why is it that we are warned not to reheat...
Wednesday, 26 June 2013

Preaching to the choir

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We often hear the accusation that we are preaching to the choir . On last week's episode of The Pod Delusion (a great British podcast...
Tuesday, 25 June 2013

JET - 30 years old, and still state-of-the-art!

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Today is the 30th anniversary of the first day of operation of the Joint European Torus, JET, and it is still the most successful fusion dev...
Monday, 24 June 2013

Action needed on FGM

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Today, BBC Radio 4's ' Today ' programme briefly mentioned the problem of Female Genital Mutilation (FGM).  It interspersed thi...
Sunday, 23 June 2013

Stuck on a sandbank!

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Well - that was an 'interesting' day.  It started very well indeed but it soon got complicated.  Cruising up the River Thames, on a...
1 comment:
Saturday, 22 June 2013

Protecting children

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In UK news recently there has been a lot of fuss about a teacher running away to France with a 15 year old 'student' (or to translat...
Friday, 21 June 2013

Beer, bacon and blasphemy

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The Jesus and Mo cartoons vary in quality from good to brilliant.  This week's edition is near the top of the scale.  Jesus and Mo ...

Surprisingly rare

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As my regular readers will have noticed, Thursday was one of those surprisingly rare days when I didn't get chance to post anything.  Th...
Wednesday, 19 June 2013

Use of social media

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This week I received notification of changes to my conditions of employment. It seems that my HR [Human Remains?] department has finally rea...
Tuesday, 18 June 2013

Quarantine

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Sometimes we find that familiar words have surprising backgrounds.  Today was one of those times. I know the word ' quarantine ' i...
Monday, 17 June 2013

Teaching the other controversy

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People preach about ' teaching the controversy ' in the debate about evolution, as if Intelligent Design were science.  Maybe there ...
Sunday, 16 June 2013

Dennett's Tools for Thinking

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I find it very interesting and informative and in fact generally pleasurable to listen to philosopher, ' horseman of the apocalypse ...
1 comment:
Saturday, 15 June 2013

Born of a woman

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One small phrase from the bible has been the source of rumblings among scholars for nearly two milliennia.  Galatians 4:4, which refers to t...
Friday, 14 June 2013

Swimming the Thames

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Boating on the canals is quite different from boating on the River Thames. The protocols for the locks are different.  Finding a free moor...
Thursday, 13 June 2013

The sound of one hand clapping

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Buddhists (I believe) use the expression ' the sound of one hand clapping ' to represent something that is not possible, something t...
1 comment:
Wednesday, 12 June 2013

How many pies for £5.6 million?

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I see in the news today that Stephen ' too many pies ' Hester (see here and here for history) has ' generously ' agreed t...
Tuesday, 11 June 2013

What if you are wrong? (Richard Dawkins with cartoon.)

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This is a nicely drawn cartoon version of the famous answer that Richard Dawkins gave to someone who asked " What if you are wrong? ...