The Walker With Heart

It's almost done, the End of Module Assignment - EMA in the secret Open University code language - is written, and a friend is proof reading it before I send it in.  For better or worse its done. With a course as wide ranging in time, space, and philosophies, I'd be surprised if any of us on the course have taken the same route to an answer, let alone have any commonality in our choice and use of independent references. So hopefully, I'm a fiddle and a re-read away from finishing my first third year course with the OU.   Have I learnt anything? My core of scientific based atheism is unchanged, my belief that the world is held back by the energy wasted on religion is unchanged.  My appreciation of some people has greatly increased, Rabbi Regina Jonas' story should be taught to anyone and everyone about how you can treat people with inhumanity not just by torturing and killing them, but by trying to forget they existed.  If you read n...

The postmodern irony version of this post would be a blank page... However, I'm hoping my usual mutterings and mumblings will leak into the academic part of my brain and let me get beyond the 10% of my final OU essay that I'm currently stuck on... Part of that's my fault, I'm gambling big with a large multifaceted approach to the question which makes juggling the elements a little more difficult and piecing them together an headache. However, stuck in the doldrums of the Newfoundland and Rotherham Sex scandals and their religious components is not a place anyone can lurk for long without getting angry... Which is a slight problem as I'm angry enough this week.  Two promotion applications, two sets of feedback not calling me for interview.  One set I fully accept, its was a tilt at windmills job and the feedback is about what I would expect - need more big team management (as a scientist, I have more management experience than almost all of my peers, as an Admi...

I do so like a challenge, so following a text from me saying how good my Sunday lunch was a mate sent the challenge back that he "Expected the Jay Rayner style review soon"... So with apologies to my favourite restaurant critic. The Maritime Dining Rooms at the Liverpool Maritime Museum could easy be yet another National Trust style "tea and bun emporium" with tacky links to the latest displays and a creeping sense of lavender impregnation.  Almost hidden on the third floor of the converted dock building, the best seats are those either looking at the iconic Three Graces, only recently spoilt by the black monstrosity of a new build, put up with all the sensitivity of a sledgehammer through an Old Master, or the Albert Dock, surprisingly busy with a range of sailing boats, narrow boats and the occasional giant swan pedalo. With unfussy, pleasant efficiency the table is taken and menu arrives, only tea as I've a run tonight, and the roast beef is ordered.  ...

It's been a weekend of good running, managing to get out to my running club's monthly 5km - it's still a little odd to think I've joined a running club, but these guys and gals are amongst the friendliest bunch of lunatics you can ever meet... http://www.knowsleyharriers.com/ So, a good 5k, my sixth fastest ever... Liverpool has a couple of very good 10ks, the Mad Dog up in Southport and the Spring 10k.  A flattish, fastish 10k with excellent organisation and a decent t-shirt, medal and goody bag... complete with a tin of salmon... Not sure why, but hey ho, its protein! And so on to the giant boobies... In my runs I've; tangled with Chinese Dragons in Manchester, been tripped up by a banana, been given a dead leg by a dog, chased someone carrying a Angel of the North made out of 4 by 2, been overtaken by a 9' foam nurse and was almost given a horn enema by someone running the London Marathon as a rhino. Today, however, was the first time I've been ...