Category Archives: Uncategorized

I’ve taken to telling passers-by when I like what they are wearing. The other day, a woman wearing a pink and grey silky dress walked towards me – I commented on its loveliness and she was delighted – such a small thing but it brought pleasure to us both. Yesterday, I went to the BritishContinue reading “Appreciating Beauty”

When I ask policy makers and practitioners what they would like to know about a particular intervention, they usually reply, almost as a knee jerk response, that they want to know whether it is effective or whether it works.  If I ask them what effective or ‘works’ means for their intervention, they usually are unableContinue reading “Effectiveness”

I am really bad at looking after my teeth. I avoid dentists because of memories of dentistry when I was a child. The numbing effects of the anaesthetic seemed to last for days. But it has been a long time since a dentist hurt me and the effects of the numbing injection only last aContinue reading “A visit to the Dentist”

The other day a gardener came round – a friend of a friend – to give me some advice. The garden has deteriorated over the last couple of years as I have been unable to weed, dig out the brambles or prune the shrubs. He advised clearance and replanting with shrubs which would be moreContinue reading “Early Promise”

I have been thinking some more about boredom and the road to greater creativity. I am an admirer of Simone Weil. I think she is an important writer – but I don’t think I understand half of what she says, but I battle on with her. She made a comment about losing our imaginations asContinue reading “Boredom and the Local”

I came across this term whilst reading a book on critical realism, a form of philosophy of social and natural science. The writers suggested that one of the causes of climate change was our obsession with growth, GDP etc and that we need to challenge capitalism with its focus on competition, scarcity and expansion. EconomicsContinue reading “Degrowth”

I read an article recently which spoke to epistemological injustices that I have already blogged about. I am also reading about the philosophy of social science at the moment and I want to consider the notion of truth. The authors of the paper took three examples of ‘post truth’ (I will leave aside what IContinue reading “Truth and Post Truth”

Yesterday, I went to my first gig in many years. I hesitated about going out as I often do – it is easier to sit on my comfy sofa – but once I got on the bus I realised I was having an adventure which was delightful. The gig was at the Kings Place, aContinue reading “the Breath”

I recently finished a PhD, it took me 8 years. At the writing up stage, I was consistently working on it for 20 hours a week as well as doing my job part time. I admired my own persistence. But since I have released myself from this duty of writing, I have unleashed a chaosContinue reading “Persistence”

I was reading an academic article recently that considered the history of Classical Greek and Christian thought about oikonomia – a term that can be translated into ‘household management’. This was applied by the writer to modern management practice and morphed into a discussion of the moral ends of an organisation. For Aristotle and ChristianContinue reading “Oikonomia”