I’ve just boarded a plane heading to Miami, to compete in a 3-day dancing competition. So excited. My teacher and I have been practicing for months. We’re entering 4 dances, in 3 difficulty classifications, in 2 different age ranges. Plus a one-time-only showdance. Each dance has multiple heats, so basically this adds up to a *lot* of dancing. Ra. I’m hoping to get some video of the dances. Will post them if I can. Eeeeeee. Read More »

Someone took a picture of my brain: I was asked if I’d volunteer for an experiment that would see me lying in an fMRI scanner for 90 mins and performing various cognitive tasks. The recompense would be an image of my brain. I don’t know how quickly people normally reply to the email, but if I took more than a millisecond I’d be most surprised. The fMRI scanner is more cramped than you might expect. You have to put earplugs in, and there’s plenty of padding around your head to stop it moving. Then you slide into a white torpedo ... Read More »

I had an entertaining moment at this evening’s Voltaire Lecture (one of a series of annual lectures we run at the BHA) when a PowerPoint presentation went a bit wrong. Robin Ince was due to give a talk on ‘The Importance of Being Interesting’ in front of a sold-out theatre of 400 people, and just before the talk started we’d added a few extra slides to the beginning of his presentation, each containing details of an upcoming event. So the lights fall and my boss starts talking through what we’re up to, beginning by pressing the space bar to move to the ... Read More »

Spoilers spoilers spoilers. If you haven’t seen One Day, and think you might, read no further. One Day is the big romantic film of the moment, and I noticed it on Tuesday when Sainsbury’s had a thousand copies on offer as part of their Valentine’s Day promotions. I’m always one for such films, and I was also leaving work early due to being a walking petri dish, so I figured I might need something to cheer me up during the week. But there was a queue a mile long, so I called in to my local Tesco instead (bear with ... Read More »

My little cockatiel died yesterday. I’d had him 17 years, and we think he was about 20 – a good age for a cockatiel. This is him: He always had cool hair. I wouldn’t buy another bird – I don’t like the idea of keeping them in cages any more. But in this case I was lucky, as he seemed ok with it. I’ve seen unhappy pet shop cockatiels pull out their feathers and sit around, still and depressed. He didn’t do that. He was continually hopping around the cage, and would regularly sing and chatter to himself. When I ... Read More »

I photographed the anti-Dorries protest last Friday: 100 people or so gathered to protest her bill, which called for teenage girls to receive teaching on abstinence. Just girls, presumably because unwanted pregnancies are entirely the fault of women. Or something. She also claimed that girls learning to say no will help cut child abuse – the major problem with child abuse being a lack of clarity around consent, obviously. Anyway, it was a vile bill, anti-women, anti-sex and generally creepy, and it died in odd circumstances halfway through the rally. So yay! I’ve just read this slightly odd report of ... Read More »