Category Archives: life
Not all snakes are venomous …
… in fact only a small proportion are but, as I argued six years ago in one of my increasingly rare non political posts – and little knowing how much extra weight this truth would be called on to shoulder … Read More »
Women who lift too much
Meet Laurel, who has opened up a canyon in the world of identity politics. Says wiki: [As a man] Hubbard set New Zealand junior records … later surpassed by David Liti. In 2012 Hubbard was appointed Executive Officer for Olympic … Read More »
What if there really is a God?
Suppose there actually is a Supreme Creator. A family business, say – J. Christ & O. God Ltd – or piscine deity – There is no Cod but Allah! Wouldn’t it be asking us, ‘hey, what’s with all the dreariness?’ What … Read More »
Top dog
Tebay, steel city house’s resident lakeland terrier, in relaxed mode.
Helen McCrory
Despite its being (a) preposterous, (b) amoral and (c) reactionary in more ways than I’ve time to spell out, I’m a huge fan of Peaky Blinders. Larger than life characterisations by actors at the top of their game, edge-of-seat melodrama, … Read More »
Every day is Independence Day!
Spotted on Facebook and reproduced here in abridged form, these seem existential insights but I have to ask: which form of society has taken one side of our dual nature, as individuated yet social animals, further than any other? Inability … Read More »
Big cats
From Rostov-on-Don … And quiet purred the Don …
Magpies nesting
By middle of March a pair of magpies were nest building in a cherry tree at foot of our garden, two metres from a three-storey house whose east facing end wall overlooks the back of ours. That wall shelters the … Read More »
Magpies, jackals and animal altruism
I say, I say: why did the magpie help the hedgehog across the road? No, it’s not a joke. It happened for real, was caught on a dashcam and the footage uploaded to YouTube. So why did the magpie peck … Read More »