The recent scandal of horse meat entering the human food chain via UK supermarkets brings up a number of unsavoury issues. The scandal goes further than the fact that we consumers might have inadvertently eaten an animal we consider to be a friend and ally, and falls on the issues…
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A recent study, conducted by an international group of scientists, got me thinking. The study, published in the journal ‘Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences’, assessed 508 great apes from around the world, providing evidence that our closest ancestors, chimps and the orang-utan, experience midlife crises. Following on from…
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It is not surprising that over recent years there has been a growing abundance of articles, research and general commentary dissecting and debating our relationships with new forms of media and information technology. The changing landscape of our personal and professional networks via social media sites such as Facebook, Twitter,…
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Cities are getting bigger. Fact. By 2050, here in the UK, 88% of our 64 million population will be living in urban areas (compared to 77% in the 1970s). Unicef’s Urban World Map illustrates this is a worldwide trend, so clearly one that merits discussion. Originally, it was assumed this…
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I recently had to make donations to twenty different charities using their online donation facilities (not personally, I might add – so sadly my halo remains veiled). It made me wonder why I didn’t conduct the exercise when I worked for a charity myself. Or, even better, fill a research…
Read more I recently went to a talk at The School of Life, a high-street philosophy faculty running short courses about the important questions of everyday life. It left me thinking and thinking as philosophy intends to. The session reiterated something I’d picked up on a while ago in Daniel Pink’s book…
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Companies spend a substantial amount of their money building up their brands identities in order – they hope – to foster long-term and meaningful relationships with their consumers. There have been several examples over this summer however where events in the real world have shown just how difficult it can…
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A hunch of mine was confirmed last week by research showing that whilst the majority of charities are ostensibly involved in social media activity, their commitment to fully embrace the spirit of online social culture is debatable. This led me to wonder – why would a sector so dependent on…
Read moreGiven the fine example set in Libya, it follows that the rebels who expressed their grievances against the establishment last night by burning and looting half of London and other cities around the UK should swiftly be given their own embassy and declared the legitimate government of Great Britain and…
Read more Who knew how many words there were to describe all the ways my eyelashes could be perfect? Or that a car could stimulate my adrenal glands in such a variety of ways? Fascinated by the vast vocabularies that are deployed in marketing, I started collecting lists of words associated with…
Read more Leftfield commentary can provide unlikely inspiration. Conflicting, often challenging and sometimes perplexing worldviews can make for balanced argument. The people at Weird Republic have always got some useful views, often recklessly worded, but nonetheless of interest… Some of the sentiments expressed within this link are really helpful in understanding and…
Read more “No man is an island, entire of itself…any man’s death diminishes me, because I am involved in mankind; and therefore never send to know for whom the bell tolls; it tolls for thee.” John Donne (1572-1631) How many times have we heard that refrain, or at least the first few…
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Sorry to rant…online and social research tools – granted, they are useful, doubtless important and certainly game-changing in the world of research, but we don’t congratulate Michelangelo on the quality of the brushes he used, do we? We applaud and marvel at the quality of his output. So it is…
Read more ‘Nothing in the world is more dangerous than sincere ignorance and conscientious stupidity’ As true today as in 1968…
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During a recent project on healthy eating, I found my looking up from my notes, with eyes open wide as a respondent said… “I’d sit down and eat the bar of soap. That’s what I used to do with my daughter. Just eat soap.” I guess fact is sometimes stranger…
Read more Its always a challange to hear this kind of sentiment, especially from young people when talking to them about sensitive topics. How do we counter the extreme in research and take the discussion forward?
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DEMOCRAT You have two cows. Your neighbor has none. You feel guilty for being successful. You push for higher taxes so the government can provide cows for everyone. REPUBLICAN You have two cows. Your neighbor has none. So? SOCIALIST You have two cows. The government takes one and gives it…
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What is it with the UFC? What is the appeal of this new form of the fight game? Where’s all the spandex gone and whatever happened to those legends of the British wrestling revival like Kenzo Nagasaki, Alan McManus and Shirley Crabtree? Maybe more interestingly, what does their departure and…
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