Category: Blog posts
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You can’t spell “COVID” without O, C, D
CN: OCD, COVID This is probably the most personal blog post I’ve ever written. I had a test for COVID on Wednesday. I was experiencing a pretty scary lack of taste, and there were…
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Faringdon
Normally when I write about a place, I try to come up with an overarching theme for the post. But there are three things I want to talk about here, and they’re all very…
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Double double word score: part II
This post was originally posted on my attempt at a science communication blog, Probably Interesting. I moved it over here in March 2026 so I could have everything I’ve blogged about in one place.…
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Farmoor Reservoir
As you’ll have no doubt seen in the news, yesterday was “Super Saturday”, when England celebrated the return of pubs, restaurants and hairdressers. Anyone who knows me will know, or at least can probably…
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Double double word score: part I
This post was originally posted on my attempt at a science communication blog, Probably Interesting. I moved it over here in March 2026 so I could have everything I’ve blogged about in one place.…
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Aristocrats, mutations and diseases: the Galton–Watson process
This post was originally posted on my attempt at a science communication blog, Probably Interesting. I moved it over here in March 2026 so I could have everything I’ve blogged about in one place.…
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Ks in point
This post was originally posted on my attempt at a science communication blog, Probably Interesting. I moved it over here in March 2026 so I could have everything I’ve blogged about in one place.…
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Mental health
CN: Mental health (obviously), suicide reference Today is the last day of Mental Health Awareness Week here in the UK. Since I’ve been involved in a couple of events in my Department connected to…
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The Silver Blade
So someone sent me a really interesting—if somewhat vague—suggestion for a blog post, which will be next week’s post. However, it takes a certain amount of research, and I haven’t had time to do…
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Lipograms and so on
I’m a fan of writing with constraints, in which an author insists upon choosing words that satisfy a condition. By this, I’m talking about things in grammar or linguistics, not topics of writing. A…