rachel.blog

insignificant ramblings of a 50-something woman

  • Backwards reasoning

    George Monbiot wrote an article this week which has struck a chord with me called Backwards Reasoning. It is something we all do – reason backwards. If we’ve already made up our minds about something, then we reason with ourselves to justify that conclusion. If we don’t like a particular conclusion, we reject the premise.…

  • York Museum Gardens

  • Fairness in voting

    In less than a week, Australians will vote for their choice of prime minister in a federal election. I have always been interested in fairness but where voting is concerned, it can be very difficult to devise a fair voting system. Australia uses a preferential ballot system where voters rank candidates in order of preference.…

  • Possible practical applications in pure mathematics?

    The place we’ve rented in York is unfurnished so we’ve had to find things to sit on, lie on and eat from. Most of this stuff has come from second-hand furniture shops. In one place, I found a cool old trunk which I immediately decided should be our coffee table/toy box. Here it is: I…

  • Who is Christopher Monckton?

    I was wrong about Christopher Monckton. For some time now, I’ve thought he was the 3rd Viscount Monckton of Brenchley (whatever that means), but it turns out that he’s Sacha Baron Cohen’s latest creation, uncovered by Australian comedian, Craig Reucassel. Thanks to Sou at HotWhopper for pointing this out.

  • Cycling in York

      The ease with which we can cycle around York has surpassed all of my expectations. Perhaps this is because we have come from car-dependent Auckland where bicycles are not catered for very well, so I really didn’t expect much. In York, however, there are many completely off-road cycle paths like this one above which…

  • Rowntree Park

    York’s Rowntree Park is an absolute gem. It is public green space which was gifted to the city of York by Rowntree (the chocolate company) in 1921 in memory of employees of the company who died during the war. It’s now a huge park with children’s playgrounds, bowling and putting green, skate park, tennis courts,…

  • Plane crashes and climate change

    I am quite fascinated by aeroplane crashes. It’s just another of my morbid obsessions. One crash in particular, stands in my mind above all others. It’s the 1990 crash of Colombian flight 52 into the village of Cove Neck, New York killing 73 of the 158 people on board. What is so intriguing about this…

  • We’ve got a bakfiets!

    We have been very busy here. So busy in fact, that I’ve neglected my blog. But I have some great news to report today: we have wheels! Just two, completely carbon-neutral wheels. This is an original Dutch bakfiets, a second-hand one, built especially for lugging children and shopping around town and countryside. I have wanted…

  • An English pub lunch

    Something missing from Australia and New Zealand is the cosy and characterful village pub. I have fond memories from when I used to live here of visiting English pubs on Sundays for a pub lunch. Today we enjoyed a Sunday lunch at The Black Swan in York, a 15th Century haunted house. It was wonderful.…

  • Anthropologist debunks paleo diet

  • York…WOW

    I visited York briefly many years ago and saw the city centre, the Minster and the Shambles. I can remember thinking at the time, WOW. Coming back again now it is all just as WOW as it was back then. Here are some of the things we saw today.

  • More pics of the main streets of St Andrews

  • Watching the drip drop

    My old university, The University of Queensland, is home to the world’s longest running experiment. Things are just about to get exciting because a very rare event, the drip of a tar-like substance called pitch, is imminent and in the 83 years of the experiment’s life, only 8 drips have fallen. No-one has witnessed any…

  • The Himalayan Putting Course

    Someone suggested to me this morning that we visit the The Himalayan Putting Course in St Andrews and by strange coincidence we just happened to be on our way to this very spot.  The Himalayan Putting Course is run by the Ladies Putting Club and is open to everyone, including beginners and children but only…

  • In praise of change

    I’m an impatient person. I also relish change. I’m not one of those people who fears it and who rejects everything new. Perhaps this is partly why I have no objections to implementing the changes needed to stem global warming and am perplexed why so many people fight against them. I read this great tweet…

  • When in Rome…

    We’re in St Andrews, the birthplace of golf, and what better way to introduce the kids to the sport than by visiting the British Golf Museum? It’s not a free museum but I think we got our money’s worth. It’s filled with cabinet after cabinet of old golf clubs, golf balls, trophies and medals and…

  • More from St Andrews

    You can’t go to St Andrews without visiting the world-famous Swilcan Bridge and this we did today. I’m not sure whether you’re allowed to walk onto the green for the purpose of taking photos but we did and no-one told us off. Here are our tacky tourist photos. Ben is attending a conference here so…

  • St Andrews

    We are in the lovely coastal village of St Andrews, Scotland. The Ricoh British Women’s Golf Open is currently running (not the reason we’re here) and the place is heaving with golf enthusiasts. An English friend of mine who recently spent some time in New Zealand (you know who you are!) told me that British…

  • Can scientists have opinions on policy?

    This post is in response to an opinion piece in The Guardian this week, Climate scientists must not advocate particular policies that is written by a climate scientist, Tamsin Edwards. It has spawned a number of blog posts already so I probably don’t particularly need to add my own but being the opinionated person that I…