September 2016

  • Traditional whaling in the Faroes

    Last week's Spectator has an article by Heri Joensen, the lead singer of Tyr, a Faroese heavy metal band, on his social media problems after he confessed to taking part in a grindadráp, the hunting of long-finned pilot whales when they get close...

  • Gender Hubbub

    I've been reading about Gender Hub, but for all the wrong reasons. GH (not to be confused with Good Housekeeping) says that it's "a free online resource that aims to strengthen the cadre of gender expertise and its application in Nigeria....

  • 750,000 hungry people in the north-east of Nigeria

    I wonder if the forthcoming TEESNet conference, with its focus on the SDGs, will find time to consider what's going on in Nigeria where famine is looming in Borno State in the north-east of the country.  Nigeria is Africa's second largest...

  • No one's using the C word

    It is their alleged power to enhance social mobility that seems to dominate the argument for more grammar schools in England, but what's the evidence?  Toby Young, in a recent Spectator article finds little to show that such schools have ever created or helped...

  • Revolution through soft furnishings

    I wrote the other day about an encounter in Walthamstow with the ghost of William Morris, noting that all the fine wall paper and lovely design in the world couldn't raise the consciousness of the oppressed masses.  That's the trouble...

  • Vital statistics

    I was scribbling about global warming and went to the NASA website.  As well as some fine pictures – they do have some of the world's best camera angles – the screen shows some key climate change / global warming...

  • Parochial thinking about the neoliberal project

    Did you catch this obituary about neoliberalism in the Guardian from Martin Jacques? Rather wishful thinking, I felt, and astonishingly neglectful of the world beyond the USA-EU-UK axis.  What about the world’s poor and the SDGs, I wondered … ....

  • So, how did it feel?

    I made my usual Olympics resolution not to get drawn in to it all, and the 5 hour time difference ensured that I didn't watch too much.  But I did follow the track cycling drama which, if you listen to whinging foreigners,...

  • A settled sentimental socialist

    This was Engles' verdict on William Morris, and the quote was prominently displayed in the house where he lived as a teenager, and which I visited recently.  It's now the William Morris Gallery in Walthamstow, and makes for a fine day...