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Walking Commentary

Walking Commentary

Thoughts and cycling from Manchester to Rome in 2023

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tim harford

First Cheese

March 22, 2021 by Simon Robinson Leave a Comment

Caveat emptor: today’s musings may suffer from sleep deprivation.

I woke just before first cheese. It was light but overcast, very grey. Dublin Port was handling at least two cargo ships, one leaving, the other arriving. My mind was jumbled. Outgoing stolen cars and animal flesh? Incoming vaccines and fruit pickers? Pigeon toes above the bedroom ceiling scratched me wider awake. I picked up a book but it was too early for the whores who were grabbing fistfuls of jewels in the hallway as they left 738 Keizersgracht. I changed books. It was better to be reading of pancakes whose menu depictions tasted better than the real thing. Probably.

Canon 1D-X | Sigma 150-600 F5-6.3 DG OS HSM | 600 mm | 1/400s | f/7.1 | ISO 1250 | handheld
[Read more…] about First Cheese

Filed Under: Fake Memoir Tagged With: booklink, brexit, dog, john brockman, mary robison, photo, richard h thaler, tim harford, travel

Cautionary Approaches

January 24, 2021 by Simon Robinson Leave a Comment

One of my school teachers used to tell a cautionary tale about a pedestrian who was killed when caught on a road at the bottom of a hill. He’d stepped between the lights of two oncoming bicycles. We were twelve or thirteen years old and not everyone in the class understood the silly joke.

today … looks like I feel when my brain hurts … a permanent network of confusion illuminated by a temporary coat of conviction … or just winter snow …
[Read more…] about Cautionary Approaches

Filed Under: Anchoritism Tagged With: Covid-19, financial times, pandemic, photo, tim harford, vaccination

Other People’s Words

September 2, 2020 by Simon Robinson 1 Comment

Other people’s thoughts often provide the focus for my own musings. And I’ll admit that there are many days when I think that other people’s words convey my thoughts better than I can express them for myself. Today has been one of those days.

This seal isn’t alone surfacing for oxygen today.
[Read more…] about Other People’s Words

Filed Under: Anchoritism, Fake Memoir Tagged With: belarus, birds, irish independent, irish PEN, lia mills, photos, thejournal.ie, tim harford

Resentments

August 13, 2020 by Simon Robinson Leave a Comment

I was educated amidst resentments. Equality was a threat to the more equal and in Ireland, the more equal folk had a code word for denigrating the less equal. The code word was and is ‘begrudgery’. I grew up scared that begrudgery would undo society while the more-equal missed the point entirely.

Begrudgery is all about identifying resentment. It is resentment but it is also a pejorative term for the alleged resentful. And I wonder if begrudgery could itself go pandemic to become the single biggest threat after Covid-19.

  • 2016 Bouncy Castle
  • 2013 three day old clasp
  • 2016 Third Birthday Cake
  • 2003 Harefield Swans
  • 2010 Inukchuk Tableau
  • 2010 Inukchuk Wave
A selection of this day memories.
[Read more…] about Resentments

Filed Under: Anchoritism Tagged With: alexander betts, brexit, financial times, inukchuk, pandemic, risk, smart, ted, tim harford, xenophobia

Micromort and big numbers.

April 19, 2020 by Simon Robinson Leave a Comment

I’ve decided to put my trust in the reader and dispense with long introductions and explanations. If you care what a micromort actually is, you’ll follow the links. If you don’t understand big numbers, you’ll be in good company. 

Today is the day we should have reached unorthodox Canterbury after walking out from Manchester on April Fools’ Day. Instead, like so many, I’m curfewed.

[Read more…] about Micromort and big numbers.

Filed Under: Anchoritism, Fake Memoir, ManRom2021 Tagged With: actuary, birds, booklink, computing, Covid-19, daniel kahneman, david eagleman, dinosaurs, geology, geophysics, governance, innumeracy, john berger, pandemic, seo, stephen pinker, the elders, tim harford, walking

20 Lines

April 3, 2020 by Simon Robinson 1 Comment

What thoughts and whose ideas have a value?

Lia bought 20 Lines a Day by Harry Mathews recently. Stendhal had commented that “20 lines a day, genius or not, was a good place to start”. I was deeply impressed by Scarlet and Black when I first read it perhaps 40 years ago. A conversation with Gerry Hanley in the bar of the Delgany Inn elucidated from him that Stendhal got him writing with those same words. I had only just finished reading Scarlet and Black and was quite surprised at the coincidence, his bringing Stendhal up over a pint, my knowing who he was talking about. But I didn’t write 20 lines a day. Maybe that was a good thing?

[Read more…] about 20 Lines

Filed Under: ManRom2021 Tagged With: an whitehead, booklink, Covid-19, gerry hanley, harry mathews, judith butler, photos, popular, stendahl, tim harford

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