Monthly Archives: September 2007

God and Life

Posted on September 30, 2007 by acb

Now that I have finished Peter bloody Conrad I can return to Oliver Morton’s Eating the Sun, and I was struck yesterday by the difficulty, at the margins, of defining life. This is not just a matter of molecules being … Continue reading → Continue reading →

Posted in God | 8 Comments

Any Swedes out there?

Posted on September 28, 2007 by acb

According to Wikipedia’s perfectly fascinating article on Finnishisms in Swedish, both Semla, (a sort of bun) and dyna (a cushion) are Finnishisms in place of more common and “proper” Swedish terms. Yet both words were in everyday use in my … Continue reading → Continue reading →

Posted in Sweden | 14 Comments

Bastards and condoms

Posted on September 28, 2007 by acb

It’s not often that you find Damian Thompson and PZ Myers singing in the same choir but they are both shocked by the Roman Catholic Archbishop of Maputo who has claimed not only that condoms don’t prevent AIDS but that … Continue reading → Continue reading →

Posted in God | 6 Comments

Angela Lambert

Posted on September 27, 2007 by acb

My friend Angela Lambert died early yesterday morning. She had been horribly ill for a long time; had indeed sent a message to all her friends in April saying “Goodbye”, so I was able to tease her about missing a … Continue reading → Continue reading →

Posted in Literature | Comments Off on Angela Lambert

notes from fishing porn and elsewhere

Posted on September 27, 2007 by acb

Last summer my friend Christer pressed on me a book of fishing porn by Gunnar Westrin, which contains some wonderful photographs, though I can’t find any on his web site. I learnt from it some interesting things about grayling; also … Continue reading → Continue reading →

Posted in Trouty things | 2 Comments

Dawkins and Midgley, from comments

Posted on September 24, 2007 by acb

Jeremy Ahouse writes: Our host points us to Dawkins’ unburying the hatchet in a recent post. Andrew himself admirably covered this episode between Midgley, Dawkins and Mackie (7, Chapter 5) from the late 70s-early 80s. For fun I reread those … Continue reading → Continue reading →

Posted in Science without worms | 2 Comments

Dawkins, Midgley, disfiguring vanity

Posted on September 21, 2007 by acb

I see on Pharyngula that Richard Dawkins has claimed that Mary Midgley confessed to never reading the Selfish Gene before reviewing it in Philosophy. This is untrue, whether or not he believes it. When he first told it me, in, … Continue reading → Continue reading →

Posted in Science without worms | 11 Comments

More animals

Posted on September 19, 2007 by acb

Revisiting the walk under the flightpath — for there is at this time of year a stretch of about half a mile of almost continuous blackberry bushes, and it’s a shame that they are not as good as the ones … Continue reading → Continue reading →

Posted in Blather | Comments Off on More animals

Rafe Coburn nails citizen journalism

Posted on September 19, 2007 by acb

Yesterday I read that on Friday, President Bush sat down with a group of “milbloggers” to discuss how things are going in Iraq, and more importantly, get his version of the truth out to the public without its being filtered … Continue reading → Continue reading →

Posted in Journalism | 3 Comments

Walkies

Posted on September 17, 2007 by acb

We set out yesterday to walk from Thaxted to Chickney Church without a map. I got most of the route right, which means there were only two wrong turns — and, in fact, both of them are marked as perfectly … Continue reading → Continue reading →

Posted in Blather | 2 Comments