When I learned of the massacre at Christchurch, a city of which I am fond, I had an immediate sick feeling. Somehow I had expected something like this for a long time — a sort of retaliation for the senseless ISIS bombings in Europe and Bali. Sooner or later it was going to happen. Then came a second even sicker feeling when I learned that the perpetrator was an Australian. That’s all we need. There will be a response before long, and probably in our country. I’m not sure that I can be usefully alert; I am certainly alarmed. I…

In 1212 another Crusade to the Holy Land took place, and this one now has the popular name ‘the Children’s Crusade’, because it is thought to have been prompted by visions that came to children in France and Germany, and because many children apparently took part in it. Some were sold into slavery. The name was also given to a civil rights movement in the USA in 1963. What we saw last week could be given the same appellation, though this time the focus was on ‘climate change’, not civil rights (unless you draw a long bow) or the Holy…

[Word Press has upgraded me to a new level, some aspects of which I do not understand. Hence the failure to supply proper links save one. I hope to do better next time.] For thirty or so years, from 1980 to 2010, a good deal of my professional life was taken up with assessing applications for money to allow individuals and groups to carry out the research they wanted to do. That led me into the arcane world of peer review and careful assessment. I learned a lot — about intellectual mafias, about arrogance, about the search for knowledge, truth…

Thi is a short bulletin to let interested readers know what happened and why I have been silent. I was diagnosed with multiple myeloma in July and the effect has been increasing fatigue and discomfort. I have hardly noticed the news, for the last few months, and the world seems to be much as it was when I did notice the news. I hope to write something more substantial now that I have most of my data and machines with me in the nursing home where I now live. My thanks to the many who have sent good wishes.

Dear Readers, My ill-health and fatigue have reached the point where I cannot write much any more. I hope to resume writing later this year.   With every good wish to everyone.   Don