Here’s a thing I wrote in July 2009, back when British alternative medicine was simultaneously trying to silence critics in court and complaining that there was a powerful conspiracy against it. It disappeared in blog reorganisations and possibly was just about amusing enough to deserve saving… So I was rummaging […]
This week, the shocking private emails of a group of senior scientists were leaked after one of the scientists placed his laptop in the line-of-sight of the dozen or so nosy people who were sat behind him at a rather dull public lecture in London.* Secreted in a back corner […]
Charles Quackenbush stands at the far end of the platform, away from the crowds around the shelter at the platform steps; positioned well over the tactile paving and the yellow line. “The train now approaching platform… one… is the… oh nine… oh four… service to… London Victoria… calling at… Herne […]
Some of you may have noticed that there is a Charles Quackenbush story at the back of this week’s Nature. For those of you without a subscription, why not entertain yourself instead with the second of Chuck’s seven miracle cures? The couple from the Thai stall huddle in their van. […]
Charles makes coffee. Charles is making coffee, I mean. It’s not his job, or the activity that defines his life. At least, he doesn’t think so. Others might. Others know nothing about what defines Charles’s life. To others Charles is the fifty-something with coffee-breath who gives bad lectures. They see […]
This is a re-post of something that occurred to me at the Tolpuddle Martyrs’ Festival at the weekend, and threw together on the Billy Bragg Forum on Tuesday. A dozen smiling happy people stand in a scruffy queue. The low evening sun sets a warm glow on their eclectic collected […]