[Originally published on 24th March 2015 on the People & Planet website – they also chose the title!] People & Planet recently posted this ‘Honorary Fossil Fuels’ image, showing the numerous awards and honorary degrees bestowed upon fossil fuel bosses by the UK’s universities. Some would argue that these leaders deserve these plaudits and more, […]
Mañana, los votantes escoceses saldrán a las cabinas de votación para decidir si deben terminar su unión de 307 años con Inglaterra, con los partidos de Sí y No corriendo cabeza a cabeza. El Sí ha capturado los corazones y las mentes de no sólo los escoceses orgullosos y nacionalistas, ávidos a la autodeterminación que […]
Tomorrow, Scottish voters will take to the voting booths to decide whether to end their 307 year union with England, with polls placing the Yes and No sides neck and neck. The Yes campaign has captured the hearts and minds not only of proud nationalistic Scots, eager for self-determination that has been centuries in materialising, […]
Yesterday, a temporary Israel-Palestine ceasefire negotiated by UN officials began, although not before both sides had taken the opportunity to unleash their best efforts before the 12-hour truce came into effect (Israeli tank shelling killing 18 members – including 10 children – of a single family sheltering in their house, and Hamas firing rockets but causing no […]
Tess Reidy’s article on ‘greedy charity shops’ is perfectly topical, with headlines in today’s papers rightly pointing out the dangers to the poorest Britons of a new housing bubble, the explosion in foodbank use and the use of credit and payday loans to fund Christmas. However, Reidy seems to have sacrificed all reasonable thought in an […]
I couldn’t resist responding to Suzanne Moore’s article in today’s Guardian; ‘So my mushy head is ‘hardwired’ for girly things, is it?’, despite the fact that the majority of the commenters seem to have done my job for me. For reference, here is the article and here is the study (abstract, results and significance) it is […]
The minimum number of votes needed to win a general election in the UK is one. A solitary rustling ballot paper in a single plastic box, a mere 0.00000209428% of the 47,748,900 registered voters, is enough to sweep a party out of government and breeze another one in – theoretically, a party leader’s lone vote […]
Welcome to what was formerly the rather pretentious ‘Be the Butterfly Wings’, a blog covering areas as varied as politics, sports, social issues, media, business, history, culture and many more, gathered under the twin banners of thinking and promoting ‘goodness’. It is all I can do to present my personal perspective of right and wrong, […]
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The ‘Gentleman’s’ Game
The FA and the public have been recently shocked to learn of flagrant match- and spot-fixing in British football, with the former scrambling to declare the practice as ‘not widespread‘. Following the now infamous undercover video of international defender Sam Sodje, in which he explains that his bizarre groin-punching antics on the pitch were necessary […]