My recycling box from the council is made of plastic. So is the spare one I found knocking around the garden one day. In 1978 we had a dustbin made of tin. In 2008 I have two wheeliebins made of plastic.
The “benefits” of plastic include “extreme durability”.  Is extreme durability a benefit [...]

If a man faces a firing squad of ten men, and nine of them refuse the order to shoot him, does he survive?
Go ahead and

Recycle your plastic bags
Avoid excessive wake on the rivers
Drive under 56mph
Go LPG
Give up your car
Buy fair trade coffee and cocoa
Buy an A-rated washing machine
Don’t build that [...]

I used to have this DvD player that a friend referred to as “slutty” because it would play anything.  Because of this, I’d forgotten about Region Encoding on DvDs.  My collection includes US, UK, French and Italian DvDs, none of them stolen, all paid for.  My slutty DvD player died (of some kind of electronic [...]

On this day each year, I like to remember those who died in the twin towers of the World Trade Center. I like to remember that George Bush was not actually voted in by the American people. I like to remember that Osama Bin Laden was Saudi not Iraqi. I like to [...]

Momina Hussain
Janique Irving
Ashiya Jabbi
Ying Lee
Lillian Lyustiger
Maya Mahmoud
Madeleine McCann
Elizabeth Ogungbayibi
Anita Rajoelina
Nassima Sadia
Nayfat Salim

…

(sorry about the title)
Item 1: A news story about banksy
I like graffiti. I don’t necessarily think we should have more of it, but nor do I think we should have less of it. I would like us to have better graffiti. York’s Sustrans cycleway goes along a disused railway bed and passes [...]

Somebody (I wish I remembered who because they’d get my vote) was talking on the radio the other day and resonated with something that’s been at the back of my brain (an engineer’s brain) for some time. There was talk about legislating something better, like the NHS or the Police forces or somesuch. [...]

This was going to be a blog about Iran and nuclear power. Fossil fuels are running out. Merikaland just secured all the Iraqi oil for the West. Even Britain is starting to realise maybe we ought to have got started building more nuke reactors 5 or 10 years ago. If there [...]

The guardian has a ‘words that should be banned’ column. My nomination is ‘Democracy’. We don’t have a democracy in this country. We elect our leaders in a process that is a hollow reflection of democracy, but once given the mandate, they are let loose on the population unchecked until next election. [...]