Mar
24
2021
Sugar in the 18th century, pesticides in the 21st.
We marvel now that people in the eighteenth century could have sat in their coffee houses imbibing sugar in the coffee, complacently unconcerned about the slaves who grew it. It wasn’t...
Mar
19
2021
Original sin is, as the name suggests, to do with origins. What are those origins? Science can tell us. We and the chimpanzees split off from a common chimpanzee-like ancestor only six million years ago. When Jane Goodall first went to Gombe she...
Mar
16
2021
Women have a responsibility too.
Of course, the murder of Sarah Everard is deplorable and terrible beyond what words can describe and it goes without saying that women should not live in fear of sexual harassment on the streets. But...
Mar
13
2021
Why are so many Conservative backbenchers so stupid?
My attention has recently been caught by the attitude of so many Tory backbenchers to two current issues. One is that of when to end the present covid 19 restrictions. The vast...