The Plashing Vole

Went home. Entertained the nephews and nieces: Saw a dead bat. Also saw a woodpecker: Went for a walk: to Lud's Chu...

I feel like I should be wearing some kind of medallion, because I'm clearly a serious threat to public morality. That's right: Plash...

If, like me, you lack both a roaring fire and a disarmingly cute mass killer of fauna, all you need is a big screen where your fireplace sho...

I went to see the second episode of The Hobbit  last night. A vast improvement on the first one, I thought, despite having more padding t...

OK, you've had a couple of days off from my usual bile-filled, splenetic fury. Now it's time to get back on the Angry Bike.  The ...

Rather than my usual ranting and raving, have some photos from the weekend's wonderful trip to York. The whole set is here . Click on th...

3 Easy Steps to mastery of social media. 1. Pick a hashtag. For example: Just pluck it out of the air. Don't bother doing any pre...

Down Under, one of the academics I respect most of all is having a very nasty encounter with cancer. Unlike I would in such a situation, sh...

Two people have left me presents in parcels outside my office door. One parcel contained three teen films ( Drag Me To Hell , Girl, Interrup...

There's an old saying in Texas politics relating to that corrupt state's political fundraising, popularised by the great muck-rakin...

'The world's leading technology companies have united to demand sweeping changes to US surveillance laws, urging an international b...

Nelson Mandela's death is the best thing to happen to politicians everywhere. In death, he's frozen in history as St. Nelson, posin...