More than forty years ago I concluded an undergraduate essay on Britain’s radical press, at its peak amid the economic downturn and savage repression following the Napoleonic Wars, with a quote from James Curran, co-author of Power Without Responsibility. Market … Read More »
Yesterday my favourite water bird further endeared itself to me. At Colwick Country Park, where flooded gravel pits are topped up by the Trent a few miles downstream of Nottingham, a pair of great crested grebes were ferrying chicks on … Read More »
A friend emailed yesterday, saying I hadn’t been posting much of late and wanting to know I’m OK. I’m not, as it happens. I’m depressed, a little frightened and very confused. None of these states are bad things. They don’t … Read More »
… and sixty-one years earlier. On August 25, 1959 – eight days after the release of Kind of Blue – Miles Davis was at Birdland, recording an Armed Forces Day broadcast for Voice of America. In between sets he … Read More »
Two weeks ago an essay appeared on the Lockdown Sceptics site by one Alexis Fitzgerald. Headed, The Left-Wing Case Against Lockdown, it began thus: I consider myself to be left-wing on virtually every political topic: I am a socially-liberal social … Read More »
this post also features on off-guardian As I had last month, I’d wanted in my three reads this month to start addressing the alarming bellicosity of Washington in respect of several nations, but most frighteningly China. For those with some … Read More »
The thrust of my recent post, If only I wasn’t a commitment phobe, argued that the science and its underlying data are insufficiently developed or clear to support the levels of certainty professed on all sides of a somewhat tribalist … Read More »
Science matches theories with evidence and attempts to falsify them, so they can be refined to better match reality. A theory from a group of scientists is just that: a theory. Believing the opinion of that group without critical verification … Read More »
Posted on behalf of Chik Collins and Peter Jones, as follow up to their earlier call No unsafe return to work! Stay at home! Unite across the UK to save lives and to work for a socially just reconstruction! In … Read More »