The Plashing Vole

The wonderful cartoonist Sydney Padua (author of Babbage and Lovelace , crazy computational comic crime fighters) has designed this badge ...

A simple plan to simplify student funding. 1. Charge students exactly what they paid for their secondary education. 2. Distribute the mon...

In a long-ago episode of The Simpsons , Bart insulted the people of Australia by mooning them from the safety of the American Embassy ( Bart...

I knew last night's edition of Question Time  would be a humdinger. Left-leaning Medhi Hasan versus  the Daily Mail 's Quentin Letts...

Spotted in The Dark Place over the last few days. Taken on my phone, hence the execrable quality of the pictures. I would avoid the baco...

Firstly, a word with Mr Peter Rhodes about 'news values'. I made a passing comment recently about my university restructuring its ...

It seems sad that I can name more lazy, morally bankrupt, cynical and machine politicians than principled ones. The United States, an experi...

Well after yesterday's relaxing and non-political blog-post, I'm sorry to say that we have to return to bitter and impotent ranting,...

The 1978 film Superman  is one I'm always happy to settle down and watch. It's a superhero film from the days before superheroes w...

Plashing Vole Towers apologises for the break in service. Outrage and irony levels are currently heavily depleted by a) Israel denouncing Ir...

Afternoon all. It's afternoon because I've been busy doing actual teaching  today, rather than simply lecturing you lot over the int...

I know this is hardly a controversial nomination, but this week's recipient is Bono.  Not, this time, for the stupid glasses, the m...

Reading an MA thesis, it strikes me that I've never actively considered the use of relative pronouns and what they mean in an essay. It ...

In case you don't know who Jim Murphy is, he's the current Labour Shadow Minister for Defence. I remember him as a particularly rea...

One of the interesting things about postmodernism is that with language and meaning sundered, anyone can appropriate it for their own purpos...

Despite being a largely 'insensitive wart' with 'the emotional range of a teaspoon', and once having been described – by a f...