Will Heaven

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The world is on course for a 6 degree rise in the average global temperature by the end of the century, the Independent reports today. Fine. That seems like a far-reaching prediction to me, but I’ll bow to the better knowledge of leading climate change scientists. But the Indy is clearly a newspaper which has [...]

This column was first published in Nouse at the University of York, UK
God, it’s happened. By the time you read this column in Nouse – my last for this newspaper, by the way – I will have my degree result. Yes, I have sweated my way to Langwith College, clutching my library card. I have [...]

An edited version of this column first appeared in Nouse
Unlike many of my bitter and disappointed peers, I never applied to Oxford or Cambridge. In fact, my teachers sensibly discouraged the idea. “Most decent universities turn students into scholars”, one told me. “But at Oxbridge you have to be a scholar when you arrive.”

News that the NHS will offer acupuncture to back pain sufferers has delighted some. For a start, as the Guardian reports, the condition costs the UK over £5.1bn annually and leads to 5m lost working days. It affects, we are told, “one in three adults each year and leads to 2.6 million people visiting their [...]

The Australian pseudohistorian Fredrick Toben has been sentenced to three months in prison for publishing anti-Semitic material on his Website, the Adelaide Institute. According to The Daily Telegraph:
Toben had been banned in 2002 from circulating anti-Semitic material on the website of the Adelaide Institute and had promised to abide by the order.
But a [...]

An extended version of this column first appeared in Nouse
Admit it. When Susan Boyle strode onto the stage wearing that 1978 frock, you were booing too. She looked an absolute sight. Bushy eyebrows, messy grey hair, flabby biceps – she’d make Hagrid a good wife. So why the guilt, just because it turns out she [...]

This article was originally published in Nouse
Less than a mile from the border with Gaza, the ugly, sprawling town of Sderot is one of Israel’s poorest. At the beginning of last month, in the week leading up to the Israeli elections, I found myself exploring its tiny market. The stalls were owned by Russian Jews; [...]

This horrible, mean-spirited (but tongue-in-cheek) article was originally published in Nouse - credit to Liam O’Brien for the wonderful picture
I always knew there was something off about Gail Trimble. It was the jumpy hair swoosh, the chipmunky teeth and the nervous way she would look down – or slightly to the side – after saying [...]

My paternal grandfather – Lieutenant-Colonel Richard Heaven – died, aged 89, in January. He was an artillery officer, and won the Sword of Honour and the Military Cross for bravery. His obituary, with a magnificent picture (above), is in today’s Daily Telegraph. You can read it here.