I haven’t really got an awful lot to say about N’Kisi, the talkative parrot whose ability to talk seems to contradict the usual suggestion that that parrots merely mimic. I don’t know enough about the science, my philosophy of lingu[…]

Actual book review: an enjoyable, untidy compendium of a book – the author’s fake smugness, modesty and self deprecation pulls off the trick of hauling you enthusiastically through musings, memoir, memory tricks, mesmerism and magic.
I&#8[…]

As a change from other reviews, I’m not going to touch much on the intellectual content of this book. This book is selling incredibly well. It has garnered a LOT of publicity in the US (I gather) and is a bit of “surprise” christmas[…]

This book is not for you – it said to me in the preface. Me in this case being a non-US reader – however I was already disqualified being a fully paid up member of the choir already, having read pretty much everything by Dennett that has […]

What links these books is their atheistic viewpoint – a sceptical approach to our own beliefs and an awareness of the shortcomings of human psychology and thinking – but coming from three very different perspectives. A very American “ground[…]

Over the last couple of weeks I have become unaccountably interested in baby development. This interest is liable to lead the unwary into a world of paranoia and guilt (particularly when accompanied by a vested – and babygro’ed – in[…]

Its not a sexy chart to run down on Channel 4 at Christmas, but the Environment Agency’s list of the Top 100 Environmental Campaigners OF ALL TIME is nevertheless an interesting read. A few good worthies up top means you don’t even begrud[…]

i feel this has not been properly appreciated:
the actual real welsh for microwave = POPTY PING[…]

For reasons i won’t bore you with, i needed to examine STORM THORGERSON‘s website, he of front-rank 70s sleeve designhouse HIPGNOSIS. I am immediately confronted with the following rubric: “To view this site, you’ll need the F[…]

Who is Joe Morgan and why are these people so eager to have him fired? These days Joe is an avuncular chap who dresses like he owns a small chain of successful used car dealerships. Back in the late 70s, when I first started watching baseball, Joe wa[…]