I read an article by Yasmin Alibhai-Brown in yesterday’s independent. I presume she’d describe herself as a moderate as she states she’s against the burkha. But while I found the article she had written to be interesting, and indeed thought-provoking, I found its conclusions to be somewhat dangerous. Basically, her premise is that many Islamic [...]

I don’t know if any of my readers remember the spoof news show “The Day Today”, which produced a news item (featuring Steve Coogan) as a bullying bishop. It would appear however that this wasn’t quite as much of a “spoof” as previously imagined. Workplace bullying of the clergy has become “rife”, according to the [...]

Right: let’s just get this straight. On Tuesday night, overnight, there was what is known in meteorological circles as a ruddy great lot of snow over North-East England. As this was expected, according to the forecasts, when I’d picked up Bigger Lad from school on Tuesday, I asked his teacher whether I should check the [...]

Tom Watson MP made a throwaway comment on twitter yesterday which introduced me to the idea of the Parliamentary Tache of the Year. So, at a time of year when politics seems to be even more back-biting and bitter than usual, and political bloggers are desperate to put the knife into someone on “the dark [...]

You may be aware that Fisherman’s Wharf, in San Francisco, is famous for having sea lions on it (I didn’t). You may have been aware that about 1500 of these animals have made their home their for a period of time approaching twenty years. This colony of animals — all 4.5 million kilos of ‘em [...]

A lot of websites, magazines, bloggers, and indeed everyone else under the sun appears to be doing some sort of “celebrity death list 2009″ where we are all given the opportunity to laud Michael Jackson’s musical achievements whilst conveniently glossing over the accusations which dogged him for a number of years. And now 2009 has [...]

Also known as the Copenhagen Summit. I’m not going to go into the scientific evidence for man-made global warming here. I’ve read arguments from both sides, and for me the crucial factor is that the vast majority of scientists, while they might disagree about the amount of man-made global warming, all seem to think that [...]

A couple of examples of high-quality articles from over the weekend, which again suggests to me that perhaps certain organisations need better poof reading… Firstly, here’s the Observer online: Championship Barnsley 1 Colace 53 Scunthorpe 1 Hayes 58 David Hopps at Oakwell guardian.co.uk, Saturday 12 December 2009 20.09 GMT The other membersof the Championship’s top [...]

I am much indebted to the delightful @ciderlass for pointing me in the direction of this one (and also her friend in Belfast). It would appear that up in Newcastle next week, it is going to be a bit windy. And when I say a bit, I mean that, if measured against the Saffir-Simpson Hurricane [...]

Here’s the theory: get an artificial christmas tree. It won’t drop needles all over the floor, it doesn’t create waste as you don’t have to chop down trees every five minutes, over the course of a few years it works out considerably cheaper, and of course you don’t need a bucket of soil and all [...]