What difference a couple of weeks makes. Recall that earlier this month I was out in a blizzard trying to secure a tarpaulin over the hen run, all the while running the risk of hypothermia, or at the very least playing a bit part in a painting by Marc Chagall.
Much the same as then, but now.
Well, all change. Continue reading
Everyone knows what a scientist looks like. The species is easily identifiable because they wear a white lab coat wherever they go. It is almost as if, if you don’t wear a white coat you can’t be a serious scientist, in the eyes of the media. It was noticeable, on this week’s International Day for Girls and Women in Science, how few women (and girls) posted selfies of themselves so attired to prov Continue reading
Among the many questions that swirl around the ever-fevered Gee brain is this: how fast can snails go? They seem to go fairly fast when I chase them away from our leafy veg. But how fast is fast?
This pressing question was the subject of this effusion just out in the Journal of Zoology from M. Q. Continue reading
A pandemic is sweeping the nation. No, not that one – this one is avian flu. People with poultry are advised to keep their stock under cover. Chez Gee we have a number of semi-retired and fancy hens (that is, they haven’t laid any eggs for ages) but despite their largely ornamental purpose we have to follow DEFRA instructions.
The hens are kept in an area beneath the skeleton of a smal Continue reading
(First posted over at the day job.)
On Christmas Day I received an email. It was addressed to my 7-year-old son, and it told him that his coronavirus test was positive.
There were mixed emotions. Continue reading
I was a very ham-fisted PhD student. I repeatedly broke a delicate and crucial piece of apparatus during the early months of my research, to the extent that I almost quit the whole endeavour and withdrew from the labs for a couple of weeks while I contemplated my future. I was to a large extent ‘saved’ by the skills of the workshop technician, who would smile as I entered the workshop holding the Continue reading
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, I suppose, an intellectual and therefore risk-free version of cottaging) or idly passing the time with some Scrabble app or another on my phone. A love of this game was inca Continue reading
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 to cause harm, or serious or widespread offence’. A wide variety of ads since then have fallen foul of the rules and ha Continue reading
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 on other people’s records. One of these is now commercially available, and that got me thinking about making my own music more widely avai Continue reading
