Live while you are alive
The Rueful Hippopotamus Research now seems to indicate? That hippos can communicate, Like dolphins or the great blue whale, With clicks. And thereby hangs a tale, For they can hear beneath the water Things on land they didn’t oughta; And from the bank can hear what’s said By colleagues on the river bed. Imagine you’re …
The British philosopher and author Prof AC Grayling comments that “Passion suggests something active to us,” he says. “But if you look at the etymology of the term, it’s passive – it’s something that happens to you – like love or anger or lust – that was visited on you by the gods. Unlike passion, …
Sorry, but I need to vent!!!! I experienced the WORST customer service today at a shop in Malvern, I don’t want to mention the name of the shop because I’m not sure how I’m going to proceed. Last night I bought something from this shop. I paid cash for it. I took it home and …
The Royal National Lifeboat Institution has rejected accusations it is operating a “migrant taxi service” by rescuing people at risk of dying in the water as they cross the Channel in small boats. The volunteer lifeboat charity said it was “very proud” of its humanitarian work and vowed that it would continue to respond to …
Yesterday, I posted a comment in praise of the British National Health service. Polls show that British people overwhelmingly oppose the privatisation of the National Health Service, which has been surreptitiously proceeding under the right-wing Tory government. In 2017 a YouGov survey found that 84% were against it, and I suspect that that opinion hasn’t …
Britain’s medicine prices are among the lowest in the world, thanks to the NHS’s buying powe and the tough value-for-money tests imposed by the National Institute for Health and Care Excellence. This is a major bone of contention. US prices are 2.5 times higher than ours, and Donald Trump thinks that Americans are “subsidising” low …
Last autumn 1,070 women won undergraduate places at Oxford University, compared with 1,025 men. The news provoked a snippy article in the New York Times complaining both about how slow Oxford (“the oldest university in the English-speaking world” as they sniffily termed it) had been getting to more than parity of the genders, and about …
“Changes to the climate are being felt in every region of the planet, the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) has warned. “A newly published study by the UN body, which assesses the science related to climate change, found that many of these changes “are unprecedented in thousands, if not hundreds of thousands of years” …
An eight-year-old Hindu boy is being held in protective custody after becoming the youngest person ever to be charged with blasphemy in Pakistan. The child’s “family is in hiding” and many other members of the Hindu community in the deeply conservative Rahim Yar Khan district of Punjab “have fled their homes” amid an outbreak of violence …
Continue reading ‘A distasteful aspect of organized religion’ »
“In other centuries people wanted to be saved, or improved, or freed, or educated. But in our century they only want to be entertained”. Novelist Michael Crichton, quoted in The American Interest
Given the polarisation of politics, it may come as a surprise to find widespread unity in the UK on the subject of tackling climate change. Labour and Conservative voters alike, whether leavers or remainers, place the environment among their top four priorities for government action. And even though support falls when people are confronted with …
Said Apollo the God To the belle, Aphrodite, “Come hither, my lovely And take off your nightie. “Oh no, Sir, said she, (the advice of her mother) You’re a hunk, that I know, But I’m seeking another. He’ll be tall, he’ll be fair And more handsome than you, (Who sits on this mountain with Nothing …
Signs of ‘catastrophic’ Gulf Stream collapse spotted. Climate scientists have detected warning signs of the collapse of the Gulf Stream, a development they say would have devastating global impacts. A study found “an almost complete loss of stability over the last century” of the Atlantic meridional overturning circulation currents, which may be nearing shutdown. The …
The good husband guide. On 8 April 2010 the London Review of Books reviewed a 14th Century Parisian book of household management called The Good Wife’s Guide: A Medieval Household Book.This is a compendium of medieval lore which aimed to instruct young wives how to be good, efficient, and obedient. The following is an excerpt …
The annual UK Youth Index set up by the Prince’s Trust earlier this year stated that young people’s happiness and confidence across a range of areas, from working life to mental and physical health should “ring alarm bells”. Wellbeing has fallen to the lowest level since 2009. The research, based on a survey of 2,194 …
Continue reading ‘A bleak picture of the happiness of youth’ »
