Rediscovering our animal nature Apr 17, 2021 politics & wellbeing The trouble started after Eden. We began seeing ourselves as separate from the natural world. Destined for an afterlife. We need to accept our mortality. The high streets of Hampstead Apr 15, 2021 politics High streets everywhere were already changing before the pandemic. Hampstead is lovely, but no exception. The beneficiaries of the status quo are in no rush to change Apr 15, 2021 politics If we are serious about the Paris agreement, we have to disrupt that cosy relationship between business and government. Among the many things Billy Pilgrim could not change were the past, the present, and the future. Apr 14, 2021 wellbeing — Kurt Vonnegut, Slaughterhouse Five Animal Farm: Special illustrated edition Apr 14, 2021 arts & politics Rereading Animal Farm after half a century, I am struck by how much I dislike it. Nuclear-armed rogue states May 24, 2016 politics & views Who more flagrantly breaches the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty: Iran or Britain? The Sixth Extinction May 24, 2014 politics & views The Earth’s fossil record shows five mass extinctions, in which many or most species disappeared over a few months or centuries. We are now nearing the end of the Sixth. Food of love Aug 4, 2013 arts My favourite creation myth: God made humans just so he could listen to the music we make. War on Terror May 24, 2013 politics & views The “War on Terror” is a monstrous sham, a catch-all slogan spun onto the 9/11 attack and now available to justify domestic repression, violence Terror is a tactic Sep 3, 2012 politics & views Terror is a tactic used successfully by states and groups alike. Its essence is violence to civilians; any weapon qualifies. Global worming Aug 4, 2012 politics Like every species on a roll, we’re gobbling everything in sight until we are fighting and starving in our own effluent. Art of the possible Nov 16, 2011 politics Is democracy melting away with as little fuss as the polar ice? Liveable London Oct 6, 2011 Bike campaigning in London is caught in a trap. The public approves of gentle, healthy, eco-friendly cycling, but it hates cyclists – scofflaws who Two kinds of London cycling campaign Oct 5, 2011 The recent proposal to rename the London Cycling Campaign (LCC) to ‘London Cyclists’ has been most helpful. There are two quite different kinds of Poetry and film Sep 3, 2011 My two favourite media. What we learned in Kyoto Jun 21, 2011 A couple of days riding in and around Kyoto reversed views on cycling I have formed over decades. Also, it showed me the part cycling might play in Landing May 19, 2011 At Immigration in Osaka a man in a US-style uniform – peaked cap, battledress-style top, white gloves – directs people reaching the head of the Heading East May 19, 2011 Charles de Gaulle Airport, Paris: the French don’t wander around munching and slurping like Americans and English do. They sit down. Still don’t Big Brother fears over new medical database for all Mar 19, 2010 politics Managing whom we trust and with what information is just part of life. Sooo mid-twentieth-century Nov 24, 2009 Parliamentary democracy? Sooo mid-twentieth-century. Who needs MPs to say what the people think when we can read their emails, intercept their phone Next page