While I really need to pick up some more work and earn some more money right now (you can see how seriously I am taking this can't you?) it is so tempting to relax into the laid back vacation that is the life of the casual worker. When I am actually at the museum, which isn't really that often given the short working days and the fact that I'm only ( Read more... )

I may have mentioned before that my first experience of online communities was with bookcrossing. I was surprised to realise when I looked at my 'bookshelf' today that I've been a bookcrosser for almost four years. I haven't always been particularly active but I still get a kick out of the whole thing. The idea is that members leave books in public ( Read more... )

Vasco, I just thought you'd like to know that someone beat you and mgd to it:


( Read more... )

I've been reading The Beach by Alex Garland. I haven't seen the movie, I hear it's crap, but the book has got me thinking.

It's slightly ironic that the book is set in Thailand where it's warm and sunny while I'm settling into an English Autumn. That fact aside it is making me think about my own expectations of travel and how I go about it. The main ( Read more... )

I've just started reading The Wisdom of Crowds: Why the Many Are Smarter Than the Few by James Surowiecki. It's fascinating, particularly given some of the discussions on democracy that have been going on here lately. The basic argument, based on studies of group decisions and tests of individual versus group answers to problems, is that: 'Group's ( Read more... )

Yesterday I went for a drive and interviewed a lovely woman about her time as a president for her local branch of the Good Neighbour Council. [In the 1950s the Australian Government funded the GNC to welcome and support new migrants. It was an era when assimilation was the main government policy, and historians have various opinions on the success ( Read more... )