Westminster Skeptics, convened by media lawyer and journalist David Allen Green, is one of the best places to go and hear interesting talks. I’ve been going for a couple of years now. Recently I’ve seen Juliet Jacques talk about transgender issues and the media, and Paul Lewis talking about the riots. Longer ago, I saw… [Read more…]
July 19, 2011
I thought I’d put this up before. Cleaning Up is now on Kindle! It should be in other electronic editions too.
June 11, 2011
On Thursday I went up to Manchester to talk to Manchester Skeptics about addiction. On the way, I experienced a dreaded awful Pendolino train which was a sort of vomitorium. (See what I did there? Yes, I know.) Luckily, the most excellent Danny from Newcastle Skeptics came and met me for tea when I finally… [Read more…]
March 16, 2011
I’ve been in a sort of survival mode during 2011 so far, which is why I haven’t blogged. Media kerfuffles have dropped way down my life list. I’ve been missing them though. And I’ve had quite a few headdesk moments following the ‘feminists vs porn’ debate. Here’s an interview with me by Bridget Freer in… [Read more…]
January 3, 2011
Here is an evocatively faded polaroid of me aged 10 in 19** with Eric Morecambe. It was taken at a charity cricket match at a stately home somewhere in Leicestershire. I’m posting this in response to the hashtag #lametofame on Twitter. Enjoy.
September 12, 2010
All the talk of 9/11 takes me self-centredly back to my life in 2001, and how unhelpfully mad it was, how much worse it got, and the fact that a year and a day later, on September 12th 2002, I went out for the evening sober and stayed sober, and have remained that way until… [Read more…]
April 23, 2010
Anonymous hate mail had its moment in the spotlight this week, with this story: Historian’s wife and her poison pen expose dark side of literary criticism. Historian Orlando Figes, who teaches at Birkbeck, called in the lawyers when he was accused of penning nasty reviews of various colleagues’ work. How embarrassing, then, that the culprit… [Read more…]
June 12, 2009
As soon as I decide to have a news blackout, because I’m sick of it all, a very sad booze story pops up in the media, and they called me in this morning, to talk about alcohol and the workplace. Here’s the audio.
June 8, 2009
Someone asked me the other day if there was an excerpt from Cleaning Up on this site, and I realised there wasn’t. So here’s the introduction as a pdf.
April 24, 2009
PY Gerbeau’s programme about binge Britain is finally coming out, on Friday 1st May at 11am on Radio Four. As well as interviewing me, he spoke to some other alcohol connected people. I can’t wait to hear it.
January 11, 2012
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