And given the present circumstance, I'm going with a very long and still unconcluded war, in fact, one that is only in certain of its phases a matter of remembrance rather than a present matter.
The War Against Disease.
Thomas Nashe, In Time of Pestilence: ADIEU, farewell earth's bliss!
This world uncertain is:
Fond are life's lustful joys,
Death ( Read more... )

And continuing my theme of recent years which has been, wars more generally, and this is one of the longer ones -

- which really perhaps I should have noted last year, since there was, at least in my country, a significant battle finally won 100 years previous, except that it was also the bicentenary of Peterloo -

- I was wondering about March of the ( Read more... )

Was thinking that when I was a young 'un (and in spite of things like polio, and the so-called 'Asian' flu, and the general prevalence of diseases that anti-vaxxers have forgotten were still a peril within living memory) the Big Threatening Horror was The Bomb -
Four Minutes Warning and then Oblivion, or maybe a radioactive wasteland inhabited by ( Read more... )

I'm sure I've ranted before about my scepticism over those figures about the massive decline in male fertility since [whenever], and when I see woezing over 'in the last 40 years', when I think it was over twenty years ago when I was still finishing up my thesis that I was seeing woezing over 'in the last 50 years' male fertility had plunged -
And ( Read more... )

Okay, there is usually a fairly grim or bleak subtext to Beatrix Potter's animal tales, but she didn't think of this one:
Leprosy revealed in red squirrels across British Isles
and apparently it's been the case for centuries.
(So, perchance the grey squirrel has been unjustly fingered for their decline.)
However - I R PEDANT - I am surprised that ( Read more... )

The annual Bad Sex Award has been made; I wonder if the contenders had read this How to write good sex scenes and taken it as a how-to manual. This, Rude awakening: three essential rules for writing good sex, appears more seriously intended, but I'm fairly sure that the Six and Sixty Ways applies to sex-writing as to other genres.
Okay, I can see ( Read more... )

I really liked this piece (I do get some great pointers via FaceBook, like anything it's who you know, right?):
Shouting at doctors: archaeology and food allergy.
It resonates with a lot of things I've said here about history over lo these many years - that one example of something doesn't mean it was universal or even that it totally alters the ( Read more... )

Sensory Fiction: Books That Let You Feel What The Characters Do

Okay - I am sitting shivering in the window seat because the weather precludes a healthful walk; then my nasty cousin shies a book at my head; and that's well before we get to the attempted arson, and covers a range of ground including being semi-starved (if I want delicious buttered ( Read more... )

'Black Death pit' unearthed by Crossrail project:
Thirteen bodies have been found so far in the 5.5m-wide shaft at the edge of Charterhouse Square, alongside pottery dated to the mid-14th Century ( Read more... )

I said it was tempting fate: since posting about my (relatively) empty academic dance card I have received communications as follows ( Read more... )