Monthly Archives: September 2015

Non-fiction: 3 (YTD 38) The Ancient Languages of Europe, by Roger D. Woodard Companion Piece, eds. L.M. Myles and Liz Barr Who's Next?, by Derrick Sherwin Fiction (non-sf): 3 (YTD 31) Girls in Love, by Jacqueline Wilson The Redbreast, by … Continue reading →

Why is Richard Dawkins such a jerk on social media? Good question.(tags: twitter ) A Hiker Found a 2-Year-Old GoPro that was Launched Into Space and the Footage is Awesome This is cool.(tags: space ) How I learned to embrace … Continue reading →

The newly discovered tablet V of the Epic of Gilgamesh Hooray!(tags: sf history archaeology )

Where do languages go to die? Decline of a Lingua Franca: The Story of Aramaic(tags: languages linguistics history ) Beware Europe’s automotive-political complex The consequences of the Volkswagen scandal.(tags: eu climatechange pollution ) EU lobbying credited with helping kill death … Continue reading →

Current Les Misérables, by Victor Hugo Luna: New Moon, by Ian McDonald The Unlimited Dream Company, by J. G. Ballard Last books finished Who’s Next?, by Derrick Sherwin Americanah, by Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie Manuscript Found in a Milk Bottle, by Neil … Continue reading →

A New Universal ‘New Yorker’ Cartoon Caption “I’d like to add you to my professional network on LinkedIn.”(tags: funny linkedin ) Masquerade I remember it well.(tags: books )

Seven takewawys from the Greek election. Story continues.(tags: eu greece ) Archbishop of Canterbury to host refugees at official London residence “Jesus was a refugee.”(tags: migration humanrights religion ) Don’t Breathe Here “every major car manufacturer is selling diesel cars … Continue reading →

Second paragraph of third chapter: Now, with time on my hands, the relationship [with first wife Jane] blossomed as I worked hard at my career as an actor and supplemented my income by working as a stage hand with the … Continue reading →

What do the Twelfth, Twenty-second, Twenty-fourth, Twenty-fifth and Thirty-second amendments to the Irish constitution have in common? They don't exist.

VW Is Said to Cheat on Diesel Emissions; U.S. Orders Big Recall Appalling.(tags: uspolitics climatechange ) Birmingham council underpaid women for decades Old news, but extraordinary and shameful.(tags: sexandgenderandsexuality ukpolitics ) Doctor Who companions Epic numbercrunching by @telegraph’s @MartinBelam.(tags: doctorwho … Continue reading →

Windows 10 irritation #1: Every time I open Chrome after restarting, it tells me Chrome is not the default web browser and asks if I want it to be. I say yes every time. And then it happens again. Windows … Continue reading →

Second paragraph of third essay: I'm going to look at Barbara and Ian not only as televisual companions to the Doctor, but as icons within the wider worlds of Doctor Who. Who were they, why were they key to the … Continue reading →

“They didn’t think he had a bomb.” My schools were regularly subject to bomb threats when I was a kid.(tags: waronterror uspolitics ) Migrant crisis: “If we don’t stop climate change, then what we see right now is just the … Continue reading →

Special Report of the High Representative Republika Srpska “in clear breach” of Dayton Agreement.(tags: bosnia ) Nostalgia, rape culture, thick texts and obsession Roz Kaveney revisits the Rocky Horror Picture Show.(tags: theatre music sexandgenderandsexuality )

Current Les Misérables, by Victor Hugo Americanah, by Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie Who’s Next?, by Derrick Sherwin Last books finished The Ancient Languages of Europe, by Roger D. Woodard Aurora, by Kim Stanley Robinson Companion Piece, eds. L.M. Myles and Liz Barr … Continue reading →

What’s your favorite “WTF” moment in Mario history? For @mariofannio.(tags: games ) Jenna Coleman ‘quits Doctor Who’ for new role as Queen Victoria Fair enough.(tags: doctorwho ) 20 Cognitive Biases That Affect Your Decision-Making Why we choose as we do.(tags: … Continue reading →

This book explains why Jeremy Corbyn now leads Labour. Its author died in 2011. The late great Peter Mair saw it coming.(tags: ukpolitics )

Which are more successful in lobbying – business or civil society? Empirical research suggests the latter!(tags: eu )

Second paragraph of third chapter: Its rock was mostly black dolerite, smoothed flat by the ice of an ice age. The ferries carrying people landed near its west coast without incident, close to the robotic landers they had sent down … Continue reading →

I'm always open to trying something new on social media, and sometimes it works (eg my posts on the best known book set in each European country) and sometimes it doesn't. This is the brief story of something that didn't. … Continue reading →

Second paragraph of third chapter: Modern scholars recognise a dialectal distinction which fundamentally parallels the ancient tripartite division. Prior to Michael Ventris' decipherment of the Linear B tablets of the Mycenaean Greeks (see §2.1) in 1952 (see Ventris and Caswick … Continue reading →

On “Passive Aggressive” and Other Wrong-Headed Advice of Strunk & White’s Style Manual Asya Pereltsvaig @LangsOfTheWorld has a good rant.(tags: linguistics english ) Russian cosmonaut back after record 879 days in space New record.(tags: space )

The Sleep of Reason, by Martin Day Second paragraph of third chapter: Dark clouds are gathering – both literal and, if I might be permitted so fanciful a notion, symbolic – and I do not happily watch them as they … Continue reading →

The story of a lawyer who was sexually harassed on LinkedIn is in the news. There’s not much more to be usefully said about that than “Don’t be a dick online, and don’t be surprised by the blowback if you … Continue reading →

Second paragraph of third chapter: As always, the player sat invisible in one corner of the studio, its face hidden by an androgynous porcelain mask that fitted so close it could really only be skin. A wide-brimmed, black hat cast … Continue reading →

The Russian Regime in 2015: All Tactics, No Strategy Grim reading.(tags: russia )

Just back from a business trip, and was interested to note that neither of the two Cyrillic-alphabet languages used for the safety instructions was Russian:

Second paragraph of third chapter: The words were still ringing in the old man’s ears when he walked down the steps to leave and stood still, blinded by the fierce autumn sun. As his pupils slowly shrank, he held on … Continue reading →

Second frame of third chapter (set in the Royal Ontario Museum dinosaur gallery): A classic graphic novel from the early 1990s, claiming to be autobiographical, about a Toronto comics artist who becomes fascinated with a Canadian cartoonist of the 1950s … Continue reading →

How did we get here? A history of migration in Britain. (Thanks, @quarsan!)(tags: ukpolitics migration history )