The Isaac Newton Group (who run the two big British telescopes on La Palma) will be holding a conference in March on the evolution of galaxies. And they want lots of copies of my book to give to atendees. So that’s me happy.
I originally came to La Palma to work at the astronomical observatory here. Almost as soon as I heard I’d got the job, my parents went to a travel agent to find out how much it would cost to visit. The girl at the desk said, “Las Palmas de Gran Canaris? Certainly Sir. I’ll just look it up for you.” “No,” explained my father. “The island of La Palma. My…
You know how some Brits and Americans are superstitious about Friday 13th? Well in Spain, some people are superstitious about Tuesday 13th. So this is your chance for slightly cheaper flights.
Full disclosure: If you buy the book through the link, it won’t cost you any more, but I’ll get a few pennies. A recent email conversation reminded me about my much-loved book on eccentrics written by a proper psychologist who did proper research. One of the first questions he tried to answer was whether or not eccentrics are slightly mentally ill. The answer was a resounding “No!” By all the…
“Making Habits, Breaking Habits” by Jeremy Dean. Full disclosure: If you buy the book through the link, it won’t cost you any more, but I’ll get a few pennies. But my main motivation for doing this is to understand the book properly. What follows is my summary of the chapter. We like to think that we chose our habits on purpose. Yeah right. Habits build up slowly, like learning to…
Why aren’t I writing? I’m a writer and I should be writing! I’ve beenreading John Scalzi’s “You’re not Fooling Anyone When You Take YourLaptop to the Coffee Shop”, and he often produced 5,000 words in aday. Welp. Maybe it has something to do with trying to catch up with cleaning andlaundry after the party season, and the quarterly tax return, andtaking the decorations down, and distributing my books around theisland,…