David Hockney has been talking to the BBC about the UK’s smoking ban: he’s not a fan, and suggests that there ought to be “smoking rooms” available. It’s not the first time that he’s gone public in his opposition to the ban – a few years ago he was interviewed on the Today programme and […]
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Mental Illness – even if it’s Gordon Brown’s – is not Interesting.
Dependably right-wing blogger Paul “Guido Fawkes” Staines has been circulating the idea that Gordon Brown may be taking anti-depressants – specifically, Monoamine Oxidase Inhibitors – under the touching and understanding heading “Is Brown Bonkers?” and making some sniggering schoolboy allusions to Malcolm Tucker-like tantrums. This allegation – and quite why it’s an allegation is beyond me […]
In Memory of Kerry Anne Stapleton Hunter
By David Hunter This year marks the tenth anniversary of my first wife’s death. Kerry Anne (KAS to her friends) had cystic fibrosis and passed away after a good hard fight on the 12th of September , 1999 a year and a half after we married. Kerry taught me many things and was really my […]
Knowing You, Knowing Us
It’s all very well to vanish off to a conference and put faces to names… but that can’t help with the important questions, like What does the internet think of you?. Fortunately, this little app can tell you. Type in your name, and it’ll do the Google version of a genetic fingerprint. In the interests […]
Quick Update from Germany…
I’m currently at the ESPMH conference in Tübingen – and having found a cybercafe, I’ll try to make the odd post about what’s happening if I get the chance. In the meantime, have some of this: I went to see Hegel’s house in Stuttgart on Monday. It was closed. Then open. Then somewhere in between. […]
Internalising Incentives
I’ve recently been reading some work on health incentives – the kind of incentive that may be used to encourage people to pursue ostensibly desirable courses of action in return for some kind of reward (frequently monetary). Some schemes are aimed at promoting a vague healthy lifestyle, as when people are rewarded for losing weight […]
A Request… and a Warning
Image courtesy of Bela Lugosi’s Dad We get spammed. Of course we do. It’d be lovely if we didn’t, though… so please stop it. A particularly egregious example from a source I’d’ve expected to know better arrived yesterday – I’ve decided to let it through for the sake of setting an example. Most spam, of […]
Vaccinations against the Anti-Vaccers
Predictably enough, the anti-vaccination lobby has been turning its attention to H1N1 vaccinations of late in articles such as this one and the rather more hysterical “ZOMG! Genocide!” blather I mentioned before. With that in mind, I’d thoroughly recommend this article on the Lay Scientist blog: a mature, non-hysterical examination of the strongest plausible worry […]
Get thee to the JME site to read our new medical ethics soap
For the few reprobates among our blog readers who are not regular visitors to our parent journal’s web-site I thought that I should point out that this months issue of the JME contains the first instalment of our new medical ethics “soap” Eyewitness in Erewhon academic hospital So, if you think that moral philosophy is […]
Is this the Apogee of Reality TV?
Maybe it’s all those essays I’ve been marking that’ve melted my brain a bit and made me unduly receptive to the potential for puerile jokes about pregnancy porn… but I saw this on the BBC News front page last night, and it made me giggle… […]