Monthly Archives: January 2021

Scrabbungulate

I’m not sure whether either of you know that I am rather fond of Scrabble. I can be found haunting the Internet Scrabble Club under the name of zedwave, (playing Scrabble online with people you know only as nicknames is, … Continue reading

Posted in addax, anoa, antelope, bok, cottaging, dibatag, dzho, dzo, eland, gaur, gnu, impala, kob, kudu, nilgai, nyala, okapi, oryx, ox, pudu, quagga, saiga, saola, scrabble, Silliness, topi, ungulate, Writing & Reading, yak, zebu, zo | Comments Off on Scrabbungulate

A Throwback to Years Gone By from the Government

Back in 2019 the Committee of Advertising Practice and the Advertising Standards Authority published new guidelines about the problems of gender stereotyping in advertising. The guidelines are clear: ‘These rules state that ads ‘must not include gender stereotypes that are likely … Continue reading

Posted in covid19, Dominic Cummings, Equality, Fawcett Society | Comments Off on A Throwback to Years Gone By from the Government

Distrokering

You’ll both be aware by now that I’ve been usefully spending time learning how to record music at home, time I’d usually have devoted to live music. I’ve an album-length collection under my belt, and have even started playing music … Continue reading

Posted in Birdland, Heavy Weather, Lockd Down and Blue, Music, These Are Difficult Times, Weather Report | Comments Off on Distrokering

DfE Deluge

As has been noted by many this week, there has been a deluge of output from the Department for Education (DfE), covering many matters that have been in the offing for months if not years. That the response to the … Continue reading

Posted in Augar Review, BEIS, education, Equality, Further Education, Level 4/5 | Comments Off on DfE Deluge

Brian G. Gardiner (1934-2021)

Just a quick post to announce the death of Professor Brian G. Gardiner (1934-2021), communicated to me just now by his son Nick. Brian was a specialist in the evolution of fishes. He was the last surviving member of the … Continue reading

Posted in brian gardiner, cladistics, colin patterson, dick jefferies, donn rosen, hennig, natural history museum, peter forey, phylogenetic systematics | Comments Off on Brian G. Gardiner (1934-2021)

It’s January, so it must be time for…

Well, that was a bit of a year, wasn’t it? With the more or less complete absence of photograph-able events that would usually appear in my annual round-up, I’ve had to get a bit creative. With the Honda Indy Toronto … Continue reading

Posted in Hobbies, Photography | Comments Off on It’s January, so it must be time for…

Passeportout

Notwithstanding inasmuch as which nobody can go really go anywhere much, even if they wanted to, which I don’t, I found – quel horreur! –  that my passport was about to expire, imminently, if not sooner, and that failure to … Continue reading

Posted in Alfred Molina, Apparitions, Carlos the Jackal, legal tender, Omid Djalili, passports, Science - Has It Gone Too Far?, the Brown Queue, travel | Comments Off on Passeportout

Are Journal Editors Biased?

Last week a paper by Squazzoni et al appeared, which had analysed submissions to 145 scholarly journals to look for gender bias in acceptances and across the whole editorial process. They claimed not to find it. When I saw the … Continue reading

Posted in publications, referees, Research, Royal Society of Chemistry, Science Culture, Squazzoni, Women in science | Comments Off on Are Journal Editors Biased?

Clichecollisional

Headline for this story, from the Daily Telegraph‘s landing page: BORIS JOHNSON PLEDGES TO RAMP UP VACCINATION ROLL OUT The italics are mine. Perhaps I am just unusually literal-minded, or oversensitive to cliche, but this seems to mix metaphors such … Continue reading

Posted in cliche, duckspeak, ramp up, roll out, semantic bleaching, vaccination, Writing & Reading | Comments Off on Clichecollisional

Bhooq

As I am sure you both know, I have been hard at work on a book. Refractory ‘t’s have yet to be crossed and the final recalcitrant ‘i’s dotted, but time waits for no-one, and as the remorseless schedules of … Continue reading

Posted in a very short history of life on earth, Christmas 2021, winged horses (metaphorical), Writing & Reading | Comments Off on Bhooq