The Plashing Vole

Vodafone: they're not listening Things Vodafone wants and which the state funds through taxation: An educated workforce A l...

What a wonderful weekend. I spent it at Trentham Gardens, on an intensive, challenging but hugely enjoyable photography day. Armed with my t...

Over at Tales from the Reading Room , they're discussing the relationship between psychoanalysis and reading (books have a subconscious,...

Were I not a short fat bloke who reads books for a living, I'd be out there with these men and women. In an era when organised sport - p...

University of CAMBRIDGE     Self Appraisal - Strictly Confidential on Pain of Drawing and Quartering                           ...

Lycerius, you may have heard on the radio or other media, has been playing the same game  of Civilization II for ten whole years  (or sever...

Every time I open the newspaper, I see something prefigured in the science fiction of Jeff Noon , William Gibson or Ken MacLeod . We're...

The Spirit Level  is a book which uses publicly available statistics on health, earnings, taxation and a host of other figures to make a ver...

Very tediously, the US state department accused the Russians of selling attack helicopters to Syria. Obviously, it's revolting that any...

Well, Paul Uppal's back from his extended holiday from his responsibilities. Sadly, he's far from refreshed. Once again, he's ha...

Morning everybody! How are you all? This is me being empathetic and emotionally warm? Is it working? I ask only because I've got anoth...

Here's video of a presentation about a magnificent piece of research. Students were asked to cheat - individually or collectively - on a...

In an idle moment (of which I have few, these days), I reread Terry Pratchett's Reaper Man , in which Death is fired and becomes a farm ...

Comrades, fraternal greetings from the Annual Congress of the Universities and Colleges Union . Ice-picks and kulaks must be left at the doo...

I've read a few novels recently, some of which you might like. The first was David Lodge's 1965 comic novel The British Museum Is Fa...

I'm not sure how many more of these web-telegrams you'll be receiving from me this week. I'm popping of in an hour's time to...

I'd never heard this phrase until I moved to the Dark Place. Apparently it means doing something in a long-winded fashion - the Wrekin j...

A few more shots of the Gales performing at the Slade Rooms. Rest here . Click these ones to enlarge. I'm getting the hang of gig photog...

Well, not quite in Berkeley Square. More like a subway and then The Dark Place's finest small venue, The Slade Rooms. Named in honour of...

Welcome back, subjects, welcome back? Have you had a surfeit of faux-1950s reactionary bunting, sandwiches, knickers and beer? I managed to ...