Empathy is the art of stepping imaginatively into the shoes of another person, understanding their feelings and perspectives, and using that understanding to guide your actions. Empathy relates to sympathy and compassion, but it doesn’t have the same meaning as these words because they don’t involve attempting to understand emotions from someone else’s point of […]
John Fowles, in case you didn’t know, is a celebrated British author who died ten years ago. He wrote a number of fiction books – none of which I’ve read – and some of which were made into films – none of which I’ve seen. The only book of Fowles’ that I’ve read is a […]
Yesterday Ellie and I took our girls to the Science Museum in London. It was heaving. The trains were full, the museums were full, the city was full; but that’s how London always seems to me. In the museum there was an exhibition on Ada Lovelace, who was one of the first people to consider […]
From David Cameron’s Christmas message: It is because [the armed forces] face danger that we have peace. And that is what we mark today as we celebrate the birth of God’s only son, Jesus Christ – the Prince of Peace. As a Christian country, we must remember what his birth represents: peace, mercy, goodwill and, […]
This particular issue raised by Avaaz has really irritated me: the South Korean government is cutting down ancient forestland to build ski slopes for the 2018 Winter Olympics. See Avaaz – International Olympic Committee: go green for the games . It’s just disgraceful. Other countries should boycott the games. Seems that the Winter Olympics has a […]
That’s what Isabel said after she ate the stalk of a strawberry. Where the fuck does she get that kind of language from?
Neonicotinoids are the world’s most widely-used insecticides, but they are harmful to bees. Bees, of course, are a crucial part of our environment, and they pollinate crops. These insecticides were banned from the European Union in 2013, but after pressure from the National Farmers’ Union, the UK government has agreed to allow use of the […]
Accompanied by Isi, Josi and granddad, I visited King’s Wood in Bedfordshire today (a few miles from our house) in search of a purple emperor. I would have been satisfied with a purple hairstreak or a white admiral instead. Here are some of us having a rest after five-hundred metres. The first butterfly we […]
I recently read the book Diet Cults, by Matt Fitzgerald. It’s about how the nutritional science behind various diets (such as vegan diets, gluten-free diets) isn’t sound. The author exposes the incorrect principles on which many of these diets are based. He also suggests his own version of a healthy diet, justified by science, which […]
This morning I was walking Isi and Josi along a backstreet of Woburn Sands, where we live, on the outskirts of Milton Keynes, when a stoat ran across the road in front of us. I’ve seen one before in Milton Keynes – in the grounds of the OU – but I’ve never seen one running […]