Intriguing article about Philip Larkin, which suggests - surprise! - that who he was with women might have been different to how he was among his bros such as K Amis (whose reaction to Larkin's lover Monica Jones does sound rather typically boyz-club-in-the-treehouse-ickee-gurleez, no? Also, have feeling there is less embittered-misogynist version ( Read more... )

Half of Britons do not believe in evolution, survey finds: More than one-fifth prefer creationism or intelligent design, while many others are confused about Darwin's theory. Oh duh! No, really? Because anyone who looks at the history finds that this has been the case practically ever since Darwin Did His Thing, with Lamarckianism or quasi- ( Read more... )

Dept of When You Think About It, You Will See That It Must Be So (thanks to the originator of the term 'Just-So Stories') (don't tell me you've never kippled...)

We all know that Just-So Story that Men Put It About to maximise the dissemination of their amazing potent SEED into the human breeding pool.

Lately noted in excellent article by Nancy ( Read more... )

I am 34, which gives me a year left to sow my oats productively before they start mouldering in the sack.

To which I think we can probably return a hearty 'No, let them moulder!' .

Because among the stock we personally would not consider breeding from, Nirpal Dhaliwal certainly figures quite high on the list.

This was the person who 'Until last ( Read more... )

Self-reflexive or meta-dream last night. I was having the anxiety dream, in which I was supposed to be participating in a session at a conference which was already in progress, and still trying to get there, and at one point I was saying to someone that I'd just been having that anxiety-dream about trying to get somewhere and being constantly ( Read more... )

This is an extraordinary story: As a young woman, Celia Robertson's grandmother was a poet of enormous promise, feted by the Bloomsbury set and with a bright future ahead of her. By the end she was a paranoid old lady, living in precarious destitution. What on earth went wrong? (synchronicitously, I read a review of Robertson's book about her ( Read more... )

Recently came across intriguing article in the Times Higher Educational Supplement (July 20, because of the slow circulation), on the links between birth defects and men's exposure to harmful substances, and the under-reporting of same, by Cynthia Daniels (unfortunately it's not possible to link because of subscription requirements).
[H]undreds of ( Read more... )

I'm glad I'm not a porcupine: possibly TMI about quilly lehrve. My favourite line:
If she was prepared for mating, she also reared up and faced the male, belly-to-belly. In this position, most males then sprayed the female with a strong stream of urine, soaking her from head to foot.... If ready for mating, the female did not object strongly.
I'm ( Read more... )

I think that at Landican cemetery, Birkenhead, there must be a permanent swirling little dust-devil consisting of Stella Browne's ashes rising up in fury. jupitah has already posted links to various reports about the US 'pre-pregnant' thing, whereby any woman between puberty and menopause is presumed to be potentially pregnant or about to become so and ( Read more... )

New research has revealed that male fertility goes into decline after the age of 40. So does that mean there is now a biological clock for men as well as women? And if so, how will it influence when couples decide to start a family? Andy Beckett investigates.

Interesting:
The French findings feel boldly counter-intuitive, in the light of decades of ( Read more... )