National Service should be reintroduced but with an experimental twist; rather than having all young men serve a stint in the armed forces, all scientists should serve in the farcical world of politics. There is clearly no other way to rid politics of the endless, dreary, ill-informed, half-baked, pseudo-science which now litters public discourse. We […]
Ever since I finished my PhD, or maybe even before that point, I knew I had to write this book. However, this is not a diary of my time as a PhD student at the University of Edinburgh. Having said that, it is not quite a work of all-fiction either. If it were, I would […]
My parents are sitting opposite of me at an authentic ceramic table. We are in their new garden. They moved into this urban environment quite recently, leaving behind the economically dead village in which I was raised. They rather like it here. We drink wine and talk, about their new neighbours, their jobs, my travelling, the […]
“No scanning, please!“ There is heartfelt outrage in the voice, which belongs to the woman in front of me in the supermarket queue. The cashier at the checkout was just about to scan her first item when she let rip with the hysterical shriek. Now he looks at her, just briefly, then at the clock, […]