Category Archives: words

Vipassana – vaguely sensational.

Two weeks before Christmas I went on a 10 day silent retreat on a former farm in Hereford. Or, as one friend describes it, Meditation Boot Camp. It certainly was tough but now I’ve had a few weeks to recover … Continue reading

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The best essay on the meaning of life I’ve ever read.

As you may know I once asked every philosopher in the UK about the meaning of life. It was a slightly depressing experience. Only 22 out of a possible?644 replied . Those replies were great. Being philosophers they didn’t actually … Continue reading

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Emily Dickinson proved wrong by science twins!

Emily Dickinson was a remarkable genius but one of her most famous observations has just been blown sky high by a pair of 14 year old twins. Emily wrote: CXXVI THE BRAIN is wider than the sky, For, put them … Continue reading

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Voxcxs

A great little prose poem i just discovered. V0XCXS.   You know that ringing sound that you will perceive when you are in a very quiet area? Some people say this is an auditory-illusion brought about the ear’s inability to … Continue reading

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Trainspotting

Trainspotting is not a lifestyle choice. You do not wake up one morning and decide that it would be cool to start spotting trains. It is something you feel from the very beginning. You are not interested in girls, you … Continue reading

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Over Mucho Grande?

Striker was the squadron leader. He brought us in real low. But he couldn’t handle it. Buddy couldn’t handle it? Was Buddy one of your crew? Right. Buddy was the bombardier. But it was Striker who couldn’t handle it, and … Continue reading

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Beauty, Charm, and Strangeness: Science as Metaphor

Thanks to Nathan Yau at Flowing Data for pointing me in the direction of this 1998 essay by John Banville for Science magazine.  He draws parallels between art and science. I wish to advance a thesis which, were they to … Continue reading

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Library emptied in life and literature.

Life has sadly imitated art as Stony Stratford Library steals the plot of “The case of the missing books” by Ian Samson. The fact: The library in Stony Stratford near Milton Keynes, England, urged its patrons to check out every … Continue reading

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And if you haven’t, you should.

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I’m sorry Alice

Maybe it is the recent experience of protesting against the pope that has me seeing paedophilia everywhere. Or, without knowing it,  i’ve become a Daily Mail reader. Which gives much the same effect from completely opposite causes. Anyhow, somehow my … Continue reading

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All My Friends Are Dead

via Blame it on the Voices

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PostSecret

PostSecret is my new favourite blog. Not that my puny clicks will add much to the 354,708,351 they already have. Which makes me realise that this is yet another meme that i arrived late for. Or maybe, I came early … Continue reading

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Steady on, old chap.

Paste some of your writing into the box on this site and they’ll tell you which author your style or vocabluary most resembles. It’s very frustrating that they don’t give any details of how they decide it or what stats … Continue reading

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Moments of information

This is the moment Bill Clinton lied (to himself) A microexpression is a brief, involuntary facial expression shown on the face according to emotions experienced. They usually occur in high-stake situations, where people have something to lose or gain. Unlike … Continue reading

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Efforts to save endangered languages

I clipped this from the web six months ago, clearly intending to say something about it. Never quite got round to it at the time and now I have completely forgotten what that was. But I will post it up … Continue reading

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