History proves that intelligence is no bar to narrow minded bigotry. I always like to think that exponents of any kind of extreme ideology just be stupid and ill educated, but the Cambridge spies prove me wrong. They were all intelligent, and all decided that not only was communism worth dying for, but it was... Continue Reading →
Why does every group have a gremlin?
Right now, I am doing a correspondence course in Agile Project Management with Scrum. It's the same as most IT training courses, managing to be both obvious and a bit complicated to implement in practice. There are about twelve people attending in person, and three people sitting around in the countryside somewhere, who are required to... Continue Reading →
Babies in Burbage
Since I mostly failed to take any photos, here'a brief account of our baby's first "climbing trip". We left Milton Keynes at 8 am, as planned. We were going to pick up a friend and her baby from Sheffield, but our car is a little too small for three adults and two baby seats, so... Continue Reading →
Dumb stuff sleep deprivation does
When I was a teenager, I quite regularly forgot things, or lost things around the place. One time, I left my bag on a bench in Stratford-on-Avon, because my friends suggested going to Mcdonalds's, which was so exciting I jumped up and left without thinking. A tramp shuffled off furtively shortly afterwards. It was so... Continue Reading →
A belated view of 2013’s films
Given it is the eve of the Oscars 2014, I'll have a look back at the film releases of 2013 (even if I watched almost none of the contenders), and a few small smatterings of what life was like at the time. January 2013: Jack Reacher. I watched this in the Lake District, on a... Continue Reading →
Why I hate gardening
Everyone in England wants a garden to call their own. It's one of the main reasons they move out of London, if they were not fortunate enough to have bought a house in Hampstead in the 1960s. Ironically, no one particularly wants a house in Hampstead Garden Suburb, as it seems to have very little... Continue Reading →
Slapped with a wet fish – really
I've been having a mopey few days. You know, drifting into self-absorbed disappointment about life, for no good reason. So I was unreasonably amused by a story on the BBC this morning; some random Irish teenager walked into a shop and slapped a shop worker with a big wet fish. A bream, in fact. I'm... Continue Reading →
How does one write something nice?
My husband wants me to write a "nice" short story. I suppose I can see why he wants this. He's so far volunteered to read the short stories I have produced; the first one was about a prostitute who dies while showing off her jewellery to her children, in an accident involving a pet goat.... Continue Reading →
Australia – Shangri-la for Europeans
I've become quite addicted to yet another daytime TV staple, a reality programme called "Wanted Down Under". It's a rather irritatingly structured show about people who want to emigrate to Australia. They're given an introduction to employment opportunities, house prices, and whatever lifestyle opportunity they think their move will open up to them. They are... Continue Reading →
Long weekend in LA in 2008
As predicted, this blog has somewhat died a death. Its cousin, The Resting Writer , is where I actually write stuff. So here's an old account of my weekend in Los Angeles in Summer 2008. I was on a business trip that lasted about ten days, so I had a weekend in the middle. It... Continue Reading →
The resting writer 