The Plashing Vole

I went to a gig last night: David Wrench playing the extended, droning (in a good way) rebel songs he recorded with Julian Cope, and Cope pl...

Given that Paul Uppal, my supposed MP is notorious for only asking questions which relate to his private business interests, I assume that h...

Today's New York Times . There can be no excuse for the behavior of a minority of student protestors in Britain, who battled police, sm...

1795: The Republican Attack, by James Gillray. Note that the 'mob' only wants 'peace and bread', and that Britannia is c...

Julian Assange, co-founder of Wikileaks , has been freed on bail pending extradition proceedings on a Swedish charge of sexual assault, tho...

To counteract this, here's the most beautiful of modern lullabies from Trespassers William , who first came to my attention when they co...

I remarked a few weeks ago on how disappointing and ironic it was that some of my students cheated on their ethics essays. It seems this i...

Paul Uppal is now beyond parody and - seemingly - beyond democracy and rationality. Yesterday, the government announced its plan for local...

Invoking the spirit of Father Jack , Theresa May (she probably wouldn't) has decided that every answer to questions about the student de...

One of my favourite words is kerning. I've always liked it for the sound and the relative rarity of it's initial letter. It's do...

I've read a lot of very good books recently about the tragedy of Ireland's economic collapse. This quite sweary Irishman summarise...

…by wandering the corridors of your place of work. For instance, I notice that one of our meeting rooms is now labelled 'Staff Use Onl...

Corporations like to seem cool and up to date. So they do things like have Twitter accounts. Vodafone decided to run a little competition th...

What a fine young man:

Take the CIA's personality quiz . If you dare. It doesn't demand experience in waterboarding, but a certain moral flexibility is cle...

Some more end of the week tracks. This never fails to enthral me:

Congratulations to Newsnight - that bastion of Oxbridge privilege - which managed to label a speaker as 'Principle' of a university...

How about a little light music. In my sporadic trawl through my hard drive, we've reached Brigyn, and their Brigyn 3 album. I like them...

Paul Uppal should just shut up and sod off. Here's his contribution to the tuition fees debate: I come from a working class background...

Well, if you read the Daily Mail and its allies. Some protestors damaged Prince Charles's Rolls-Royce after it drove into a protest area...