The Plashing Vole

In case you missed the big sports news of the weekend, it wasn't Ireland's narrow loss to France in the rugby (Thierry Henry should ...

David Cameron's announced his big new plan  at a press conference  complete with 'real people' saying suspiciously focus-grouped...

Unfortunately it's not online and I don't have the newspaper with me, but did anyone else see Ryanair's Valentine advert? It w...

The Hunter S. Thompson approach. Very much not safe for work.

I've just finished a 2 hour seminar on medieval literature: Beowulf to Chaucer. It's all the students get on this period in their ti...

Apparently a man named Lee who made clothes under the name of Alexander McQueen has died rather young.  The Guardian marked his passing w...

Little Peter's up to his old tricks again. He was on Radio 4 last night describing anyone who complains about the £500m cut in universit...

If you're a student of English, I should be seeing you this morning - it's Return of Work Fest. If you don't, you're missing...

Striking a massive blow for mystics everywhere, the Church of England has voted to work towards female bishops (one day) - equal opportuniti...

An election approaches, folks. Here's Labour's latest puntastic effort:

Intelliwench (who is both) is seeking a mate. She's also not very impressed with corporate America - read her very funny adventures in ...

It's 11.11 - precisely 11 hours and 11 minutes since I left work last night - locked in! It's a beautiful day, and I'm not teach...

David Cameron's been giving a lecture at TED , the forum for very intelligent people. The idea is that whoever you are, you get the same...

MI5 has been doing a lot of PR in recent years. Adverts in liberal newspapers stressing the caring, sharing side of the secret police - a li...

Afternoon all. I've spent two hours at the Apple Store in Birmingham, taking advantage of the assistants' kindliness. My lovely new ...

Been for a swim with Neal. Copying 180Gb of my music from a knackered hard drive over to my new Mac - manually. It's very slow and I...

Hurrah! New MacBook Pro has arrived. It's lovely. Boo! The old one is too old to handily copy everything over. Must go to Apple shop to...

What's cool? A Canadian woman's ongoing steampunk comic of Babbage and Ada Lovelace , early Victorian inventors of computing and cri...

This is the Aberdeen model , and it sounds good: 1. Consult widely rather than impose 2. Take your time 3. Be radical 4. Spend lots of m...

The UK's last Chair of Palaeography is being sacked . So what, you may ask. Or, what? Palaeography is the study and decoding of ancien...