nourishing obscurity

Let’s go all lycanthropic and unreconstructed this evening:

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Filed under: History & Culture, Music

Sorry Bruce, I don’t share your enthusiasm for the idea that the plague might be a good solution to our current woes:

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Filed under: History & Culture, Society & human issues

Is the Pope Catholic? In 30 years there has been a twentyfold increase in the consumption of drugs for attention-deficit disorder.  As a psychologist who has been studying the development of troubled children for more than 40 years, I believe we should be asking why we rely so heavily on these drugs. What the hell [...]

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Filed under: Society & human issues

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Filed under: Music

There’s a test below: Despite the enormous changes which have taken place since electronic computing was invented in the 1950s, some things remain stubbornly the same. In particular, most people can’t learn to program: between 30% and 60% of every university computer science department’s intake fail the first programming course. Experienced teachers are weary but [...]

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Filed under: Technology & ideas

Though the age of steam has passed, the great railway stations in their arching, metallic barndom still evoke an atmosphere of happier, more romantic and more exciting times and old-style stone stations with actual stationmasters who greet you cheerily still exist in this country. On a Saturday, with the numbers of commuters far lower, you [...]

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Filed under: Leisure, travel & sport, Society & human issues

Questions questions … There is an odd structure, tilted to the general plane of the Galaxy by about 20 degrees, and holding many of our most interesting constellations. Our sun is ‘sort of in it’, in that we are located about where Gould’s Belt intersects the general plane of The Milky Way; but all the [...]

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Filed under: Chuckles, Earth and cosmos

The story of Judith Clark was a tragedy in most people’s minds but the question is, of course – just which part, precisely, was the tragedy?” Tom Robbins noted, as Ron Radosh put it: Clark was part of an offspring of the Weather Underground that they called the Republic of New Afrika, a non-existent utopia [...]

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Filed under: Politics & economics

Just find out how to interact.  Not too Papist I trust:

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Filed under: Chuckles, Diversions, History & Culture, Religion & Philosophy

From Wiggia: 1 Hermitage St Petersburg As a child, museums did little for me apart from the Natural History Museum and the mummies in the British Museum. 

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Filed under: Art, History & Culture, Leisure, travel & sport, Technology & ideas, Wiggia

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Filed under: Art, JD, Technology & ideas

12. Airline Food 11. Government organization 10. Living dead 9. Business ethics 8. Childproof 7. “Now, then …” 6. Computer security 5. Tight slacks 4. Pretty ugly 3. Peace force 2. Diet ice cream 1. Microsoft Works

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Filed under: Humour, Rossa

Question 1: What was Basilica di San Marco originally [it wasn't always a cathedral]? Question 2: What did it become in 1807? Question 3: How did the Venetians supposedly get the relics out past the Muslims?

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Filed under: Diversions, Wiggia

Katarina Witt in hot water again.  Stop: 1. apologizing; and 2. for reasons of PCism. She stunned viewers and fans alike when she called the professional skier a ‘big woman’ live on TV. But today, Dancing On Ice judge Katarina Witt apologised to Chemmy Alcott and said she meant her comment to be complimentary. Look, [...]

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Filed under: Leisure, travel & sport, Politics & economics

Of note : The Bruges Group has ranked Members of Parliament according to their voting in the House of Commons since the 2010 General Election You can check how they voted on the key EU related issues that came before them and see who are the genuine Eurosceptics and who are Europhile. I’ve listed all [...]

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Filed under: Politics & economics