It might seem absurd to counter bombs with nothing more than a petition. However, as I write this, the bombing of nuclear power plants is…

Looking to the garden for good news — There is little good news this week from anywhere outside the boundaries of the garden — it’s a weird world we’re living in. Our tiny patch of corn is growing well — bringing the promise of a few weeks of corn on the cob straight from plant to hob and…

Question: What is the difference between the religious extremists in power in Afghanistan and the religious extremists on the US Supreme…

Six Word Photo Story Challenge: Freestyle — A new way to get wet. On our last trip to the coast, we found that pavement fountains had sprung up. The sound of the water is drowned by the nearby rush of waves on the beach, but it is now possible to get wet without setting foot in the sea. Fountains have been around for…

Sight shouldn’t rest on the roll of a dice — Looking is an action of the mind In cases where blindness is caused by damage to the eye (as opposed say to brain damage), it should be possible to restore sight using technology. …

Six Word Photo Story Challenge: Freestyle — Covid plus full vaccination equals chill. The guy who barged past had all the symptoms, knuckles dragging, eyes glazed with entitlement, the “Proud to be Ignorant” hat, the “F*** everyone” T-shirt — deeply infected and well past hope. He came close to knocking an elderly woman off her walking frame on his way out. …

There’s no limit to the lies people will… —

Then here’s why you need to get yourself off the lab bench — Mate! — I try not to engage with anti-vaxxers because what’s the point? But there’s an angle that strikes me as especially ironic. I’ve heard it expressed in a number of ways. Ain’t no-one experimentin’ on me, mate! is just one of them. The argument goes like this: The covid vaccines were…

Not just tripping up the gullible — Fakers have been around for as long as humans, but the ways they disguise themselves as credible experts — to the extent of fooling some genuine experts — is a relatively new phenomenon. A Brief Foray Into The Backstory It can’t have escaped your notice, if you’ve been on Planet Earth these last few decades, that…

The International Authors’ Forum and the European Writers Council issued statements in support of the people of Ukraine.

The day I took this photo Putin’s forces invaded Ukraine, and our guests decided to prolong their visit — their night flight would skirt…

Absolutely Anything Can Come To Seem Normal — I wanted to go back and say, “Sorry, it’s not what it looks like. You will get out of this alive.” The Inexplicable About Face The man was a visiting professor to our Engineering Faculty, an expert in his field. It was meant to be the start of a world-beating collaboration. But what started…

I had no idea how much it would inform my thinking — I was eight years old, the same age as my friend, Ann. She had just announced, “I wish I was a boy.” It wasn’t the first time she’d said it, but I’d been thinking things over and this time I was ready to challenge her. Our class group had started…

We are nowhere near creating technology to replace bees — and would we want to? — Even if you don’t care for bees, remember that without them, we have no means to pollinate crops sufficiently — bees are key. It’s insane to allow them to be wiped out to feed the greed of the 1% who own over 40% of the world’s wealth. …

Alan Wakeman, writer, playwright, gay rights activist, the man who changed the way the world learns English and who gave us vegan cookery before we knew what vegan meant, decided to tell his own personal story but not until it had spanned eight incredible decades.

By Giles Whittell — In a story of inequalities that we shouldn’t forget, as it wasn’t so long ago that it happened, Giles Whittell recounts the stories of the women of the Air Transport Auxiliary (ATA) in World War II. …

Seriously. Boredom gets a bad press but it has hidden depths — Brick wall, barred gate, barbed wire — this was the view that faced me the day I came close to picking a fight with a gang of teenage boys. Boredom drove me to it, but also seems to have been behind the surprising outcome. I’d left a relative waiting in…

And what does it say about a growing divide? — We live in the UK at the unfashionable end of the Meridian Trail. I use the word “end” advisedly. The Meridian Trail has a fashionable extremity where it “starts” and an unfashionable one where it “ends”. There is nothing to prevent a dedicated walker from starting at our end and…

Mask It Up — That’s me in the mask I made in March 2020, hand-stitched, double-layered with a pocket for a filter, created from an old shirt of my husband’s. I discounted his comment on discovering the mask-shaped holes; “Hmph, it wasn’t that old,” because actually, it was. Having had the foresight to retire…

The official list is not what it seems — don’t rely on it — Those traveling to and from the UK are subject to varying restrictions regarding covid testing and quarantine. Let me say up front that I’m all in favour of these restrictions and I wish we’d done more to control the spread of the virus. However, our government’s response — patchy in…