Journal Entries
Nastier and Nastier
Posted Mar 29, 2009
Strange that an article on happiness could bring out so much venom.
Now I have been accused of lying. Which was a bit of a shock.
Anyway I have withdrawn it from Peer Review, and shall definitely not submit anything else to such unsavoury treatment.
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Latest reply: Mar 29, 2009
Smack in the Face
Posted Mar 29, 2009
I posted my Happiness article last night, and woke up to the following response:
A48951390
I have been accused of named and nameless crimes, with no attempt to comment on what I actually wrote. I find that sad and shocking, and wonder what Douglas Adams would have thought. His only rule was No Spitting.
Discuss this Journal entry [22]
Latest reply: Mar 29, 2009
The secret is out of the bag
Posted Mar 29, 2009
I've posted a surprise Magnum Opus. I was working (sporadically) on my Freakonomics idea when something else fell into place in my mind. Though it sounds ridiculous and pompous, I believe I have discovered the secret of happiness, which can be read here: A48951390.
The eureka moment happened while watching the video of a lecture on the Gresham College web site. I got permission from the college to reproduce the text of the lecture, and showed it to James Franklin of Gresham College. He was very complimentary, so I posted it and submitted it for peer review.
It will be interesting to see how people react.
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Latest reply: Mar 29, 2009
A Secret About to Be Revealed
Posted Feb 24, 2009
From the start, I wanted to do something significant on hootoo. After all, it's a chance to self-publish, and if I had the opportunity to do some paper publishing to a large audience I'd want to do more than crack a few jokes and have a dig at poor old Gordon Brown.
My first thought was to copy the techniques of the book Freakonomics, but without the maths. That is, to use readily-available data to uncover something nobody else has noticed. I'm still thinking about this, but in the meantime I've stumbled across something else and I've decided to attempt a Guide Entry. It will be on a topic that Aristotle regarded as the most important of all, building on the work of a celebrity psychiatrist, refuting a premise put forward in a minor hit record by the Ray Conniff singers and disagreeing with an American cigarette advertising campaign and a British cigar advertising campaign.
So while I'm having a lot of fun directing Jabs' Utube audience to some of my favourite musicians and comedians, and joining in games of Cheddar Gorge and Mrs Trellis, I am about to make my first ambitious posting.
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Latest reply: Feb 24, 2009
Tyranny
Posted Jan 30, 2009
A couple of days ago I posted a thought (on the DEC/Gaza thread) mildly critical of the BBV, and got a reply from 3dots that really shocked me.
"Since I still sometimes enjoy posting on this site I will be keeping mum (or should that be Auntie) on the Beebs position here..."
I don't think for a moment that the BBC employees who monitor these pages would discipline anyone for that kind of offence. They work for a publicly-funded body (funded by me among others) that has fought for freedom of speech throughout the world.
They have a right and duty to keep our conversations decent and sensible, but I think it's important that we don't become cowed, and censor ourselves in advance.
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Latest reply: Jan 30, 2009
InfiniteImp
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