Monthly Archives: March 2007

a meeting of mindlessness

Posted on March 30, 2007 by acb

I was talking the other day to a politician who is, for all I know, a perfectly nice, competent person, doing their best at a difficult and important job. I have to take this on faith, though, because their minders … Continue reading → Continue reading →

Posted in British politics | 6 Comments

Fear of Flying

Posted on March 24, 2007 by acb

My flight out of Skavsta left at 21.55, and I was tired enough to think it worthwhile to stand queuing for half an hour to get a decent seat to sleep in. I had headphones on and a Swedish book … Continue reading → Continue reading →

Posted in Travel notes | 2 Comments

Is Cannabis a parasite on humans?

Posted on March 18, 2007 by acb

Whatever the silliness and arrogance of his views on religion, the Dawkins of _The Extended Phenotype_ continues to fascinate me. The idea that genes are selected as much for their effects on other phenotypes as on those of the bodies … Continue reading → Continue reading →

Posted in Science without worms | 11 Comments

Small nerdy note

Posted on March 14, 2007 by acb

While I am waiting 20 minutes for the “PNAS”:http://www.pnas.org/ site to let me back in, I might as well explain why I have been barred: I use “scrapbook.”:http://amb.vis.ne.jp/mozilla/scrapbook/ It is an extremely useful Firefox extension that grabs whole web pages … Continue reading → Continue reading →

Posted in nördig | Comments Off on Small nerdy note

usual apologies

Posted on March 14, 2007 by acb

Looking back down the page, I notice that the entries here have been increasingly trivial. This is, I know, my fault. I have added at the bottom of the recent posts listing a feed to my more serious pieces on … Continue reading → Continue reading →

Posted in Housekeeping | 7 Comments

More nose news

Posted on March 12, 2007 by acb

You will all, I hope, be as glad as I am to hear that the doctors in V{a”}xsj{o”} have managed to sew back on “the nose tip and ear”:http://www.thewormbook.com/helmintholog/archives/2007/03/09/i_should_be_wor_1.html#001986 of the Dutch lorry driver who had them bitten off last … Continue reading → Continue reading →

Posted in Travel notes | Comments Off on More nose news

Better than Crufts

Posted on March 9, 2007 by acb

-The venerable- -Dr- Clifford Longley who was religious affairs editor of the _Times_ for twenty years, has let rip at his successor, a Ms Gledhill, who has been doing the job ever since, in the letters page of the _Catholic … Continue reading → Continue reading →

Posted in Journalism | 1 Comment

I should be working but

Posted on March 9, 2007 by acb

I cannot resist [“a story”:http://www.dn.se/DNet/jsp/polopoly.jsp?d=145&a=626129&rss=1399] in _Dagens Nyheter_ about a fight in a Dutch lorry which was parked in “Växsjö,”:http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/V%C3%A4xsj%C3%B6 a small and not overwhelmingly interesting town in Småland, a large and not overwhelmingly interesting region of southern Sweden. In … Continue reading → Continue reading →

Posted in Travel notes | 4 Comments

HIgh water

Posted on March 7, 2007 by acb

It really has been a filthy wet winter. I was down by the Cam yesterday and the little river, which two years ago in March looked like this ! Continue reading →

Posted in Blather | Comments Off on HIgh water

String theory

Posted on March 7, 2007 by acb

I threw away the palm pilot this morning. It still worked if I took it to bits every six weeks and reassembled it, a voodoo which restored the touch screen to touch sensitivity, but I have just got a new … Continue reading → Continue reading →

Posted in Blather | 5 Comments