• A health story

    Over the past few months, I’ve been having some health issues. I would be dishonest if I said it wasn’t terrifying at various moments. It started in the spring when I randomly developed an innocuous, dry (unproductive) cough that eventually turned chronic. I saw my GP and we first treated the obvious: allergies (I have

    Read more →

  • One of the periods of human history that I most enjoy studying is the late Middle Ages, especially from a Western European perspective. There is a certain fecundity (in terms of ideas and the generation of concepts) about this period, which I think may be traced to a few principal roots. From these roots we

    Read more →

  • Review: Bertrand Russell’s ‘In Praise of Idleness’

    In Praise of Idleness and Other Essays by Bertrand Russell My rating: 4 of 5 stars View all my reviews To some, or perhaps to many, it may seem a radical idea: idleness. But for the great British logician, mathematician, and Nobel laureate Bertrand Russell, idleness is seen as a historically rooted concept which ties

    Read more →

  • Holiday reading list 2022

    Holiday reading list 2022

    The end of term is here, and with that comes a much needed winter break. One thing that I enjoy prior to Christmas break is compiling a list of books for my holiday reading. It gets me excited for the holiday season. I also enjoy sharing books, and have grown to like the idea of

    Read more →

  • It seems in the last decade especially narratives about climate have become increasingly saturated with a certain distinguishable hysteria, which, I would argue, is detrimental to rational discourse on what is undoubtedly an important issue of our time. It doesn’t help that popular media coverage on climate science is generally poor, if not altogether below

    Read more →

  • Back home by the North Sea

    As we usually do at the end of term, Beth and I have returned home to North Norfolk. Throughout the academic year, I greatly miss the North Sea from coast to countryside. In the past I’ve written about the coastal footpaths we’ve come to know intimately; the secret gardens and ponds off the path, with

    Read more →

  • Covid days

    This is my first post in some weeks. Admittedly, I am one that can easily lose track of time as I get absorbed in one calculation or another. But that is not the reason for my lack of writing. It was my turn to experience Covid for the first time. For the first 7-10 days,

    Read more →

  • I prefer a world where Twitter is not so important. Don’t get me wrong, I enjoy Twitter. It has some fantastic communities. When I use the app, it’s primarily to check for fun maths posts, science news, history papers, or cool new archaeological finds. I also enjoy some of the technical F1 discussions, or the

    Read more →

  • The late Steven Weinberg had a wonderful comment about life and the human condition in his book, The First Three Minutes: ‘The more the universe seems comprehensible,’ he wrote, ‘the more it also seems pointless.’ I’m sympathetic with his view about the god-of-the-gaps. Truth be told, I consider myself agnostic; I don’t know for certain

    Read more →

  • Linguistics

    I’ve been short on time this week finishing some calculations and working on a paper, prior to receiving my second Covid jab. But the other afternoon I thoroughly enjoyed this article. It’s on the Galilean challenge and its reformulation, wherein discussion unfolds on why there is an emerging distinction between the internalised system of knowledge

    Read more →