Monthly Archives: January 2004

Wind

According to the weather service, the south west wind at Stansted airport is only about 50km/h this evening but it feels a whole lot more on the ridge that runs north from Saffron Walden. The sight of trees being tousled … Continue reading Continue reading

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War and lies

This is a shorter version of the argument in the Wrap today. I think it matters. There are three ways in which Britain went to war on a false prospectus. The first, well-covered, is the WMD business. But this was, … Continue reading Continue reading

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Can this be true?

“It is now quite firmly established that the voice the schizophrenic ‘hears’ is his own; he is talking to himself silently without realising it. As simple an obstacle as having the patient hold his mouth wide open is sufficient to … Continue reading Continue reading

Posted in Science without worms | 3 Comments

Sex

I can’t use the word when I’m writing for the Guardian’s web site, so I decided this week to write about journalistic ethics there instead. But I’m still interested in sex. Earlier this week I read three widely different novels … Continue reading Continue reading

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I want a universe not parallel to this, please.

Can anyone please explain why an Amazon.com search on John M. Ford, (no link for obvious reasons) turns up a list headed by the 1535 Edition of John Calvin’s Insitututes of the Christian Religion? There will be no marks awarded … Continue reading Continue reading

Posted in Literature | 4 Comments

Exterminate the brutes

I was trying to sell a radio programme on the way that scientists are just vanishing from the world the other day, and ran up against an unexpected problem: my prospect thought that this was no bad thing, and they … Continue reading Continue reading

Posted in Blather | 1 Comment

An argument for pacifism

In all of England, there are only 27 “thankful villages” – places to which all the soldiers returned who had gone to fight in the First World War. They are all listed in the Guardian’s Notes and Queries page today. … Continue reading Continue reading

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Not to stereotype the Finns

or anything, because I am sure that at this time of year their workplaces are full of lively gossip from long before sunrise till deep into the night, but the Telegraph reports (via AFP, via Ilta Sanomat) that a 60-year-old … Continue reading Continue reading

Posted in Travel notes | 3 Comments

Tact in obituaries

Stewart Steven, who died of a heart attack yesterday, rose to the summit of British journalism despite, or perhaps because of, two monumentally false and expensive stories. He was the man who found Martin Bormann in 1972; and who, in … Continue reading Continue reading

Posted in Journalism | 1 Comment

Very belated technology award

If there is one piece of technology that has most improved my life in the last year, it is these speakers: actually, I have a slightly less grand set, with only two satellites and not four, but that seems to … Continue reading Continue reading

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