Hi, and welcome to my blog. I’ve been blogging for quite a few years and enjoy the freedom it gives me to say what I like. Many of my posts are irreverent, blunt and stream-of-consciousness. I make no apology for swearing either, so expect a fair amount of that in some of my posts.

I seem to write mostly about climate change and health these days, but also the World Health Organisation. I’m an academic by profession which means I spend most of my time replying to emails. I’m also on a TS contract which means that most ‘scholarship’ I do, I do in my spare time. This blog is part of that free labor.

If you haven’t yet read George Orwell’s Politics and the English Language, do yourself a favour and read it now. And get hold of Lynn Truss’ Eats, Shoots & Leaves – it’s still the best introductory book on punctuation.

Blogging feels very much like shouting into the ether. For perspective on one’s self-importance, I recommend Doug Stanhope’s ‘On why your opinion doesn’t matter’.

Wittgenstein sounds about right:

What can be said at all, let it be clear: and what you can not talk about, you have to be silent … So the limit will be drawn only in the language, and what lies beyond the border, it will simply be nonsense (Wittgenstein, TLP Ch7)

Andrew