Today was the day that parliament had a rather long list of private members bills to debate. Originally there were sixty-four on the list. As this informative post from Kerry McCarthy tells us, they’d normally expect to get through about three of them. The MPs sponsoring the rest of the bills were pretty much wasting… Continue reading Nadine Dorries: Just Say No
Week Notes 2
When I said I was going to experiment with week notes on this blog, I didn’t intend that the blog would only consist of week notes. But as we’ll see below, other things have been taking my attention this week and I haven’t felt much like blogging. Hopefully normal service will resume very soon. Health… Continue reading Week Notes 2
Week Notes
A new experiment on the blog this year. I’m planning to write a weekly report on what I’ve been doing. No idea how useful or interesting it will be or how long I’ll feel like keeping it going. So here’s what I did this week. Speaking and Training Didn’t give any talks this week, but… Continue reading Week Notes
Review of 2011: Favourite Posts
And here’s the second post in my review of 2011. This is a list of my favourite posts from the year. In 2010 I said it was harder to choose posts from that year as I had blogged less than in previous years. Well, I actually blogged even less in 2011 so it was even… Continue reading Review of 2011: Favourite Posts
Review of 2011: Most Popular Posts
As I’ve done for the last few years I’m going to spend a couple of days looking back at the year on this blog. Firstly, here’s a list of the ten most popular posts on the blog this year. Winterval. No surprise here. Because I monitor the Mail’s Corrections and Clarifications column, I was one… Continue reading Review of 2011: Most Popular Posts
2011 in Gigs
One of my pet hates is all that “review of the year” stuff that appears before the year is over. But I’m not planning to go to any gigs in the next three days, so I feel justified in reviewing the gigs I’ve seen this year before the end of the year. According to Songkick… Continue reading 2011 in Gigs
The War on Christmas Cards
The Mail might have finally been forced to admit that Winterval wasn’t the the pagan plot they’ve always claimed it was, but that doesn’t mean they’ll stop publishing spurious “War on Christmas” stories whenever the fancy takes them. Today they turned their attention to Christmas cards and really didn’t like what they saw. The headline… Continue reading The War on Christmas Cards
Did Twitter Censor #GodIsNotGreat?
[Executive summary: Betteridge’s Law (probably) applies] The Twitter furore over the #GodIsNotGreat hash tag has pretty much died down now, but there’s one branch of the debate that is still getting comments and retweets. Here’s an example from johnwilander. #GodIsNotGreat pulled from trends because christians protest. But #ReasonsToBeatYourGirlfriend was allowed. Stay classy, @Twitter. As I… Continue reading Did Twitter Censor #GodIsNotGreat?
Hitchens’ Last Laugh
This morning I woke up to the terrible (although not completely unexpected) news that Christopher Hitchens had died. The rational community has, of course, lost one of its most erudite and interesting members. But it seems that Christopher had one last trick up his sleeve. As with most breaking news these days, I found out… Continue reading Hitchens’ Last Laugh
Stealing Sheep
One Wednesday in August I went to the Barfly in Camden to see Alessi’s Ark. I knew nothing at all about the support acts for the night. The first act on were called Stealing Sheep. The first song they played was this one. It’s called “I Am The Rain” I am the Rain by stealing… Continue reading Stealing Sheep