Author Archives: Spuggy

Short story: Wei Lai and Mazu

Posted on 26 August 2017 by Spuggy

The moment of Wei Lai’s conception was streamed live in schools across China. As the microscopic glass needle punctured the egg, Commander Xue answered carefully rehearsed questions from pupils back on Earth. No, the baby would not be going on … Continue reading →

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Why we need more continents

Posted on 8 August 2017 by Spuggy

In any group of geography nerds, one of the biggest peeves will be “Europe’s not a continent”. From this perspective, Europe is just a peninsula of Asia, and the listing of Europe in the seven traditional continents (Africa, Antarctica, Asia, Australia/Oceania, … Continue reading →

Posted in Maths, Science | Leave a comment

Alternative Thoughts: Stories of Your Life and Others, by Ted Chiang – plus a short story

Posted on 15 July 2017 by Spuggy

Dove also wrote her thoughts on this one, and hers are better, but here’s mine.

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Short story: Messier

Posted on 9 July 2017 by Spuggy

A short story, loosely inspired by Tabby’s Star. Fun fact: when Messier was first categorising galaxies, he actually hated them. He was a comet hunter, and galaxies really annoyed him because they looked like comets (at least with the small telescopes … Continue reading →

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Did Wikipedia hint at the Labour surge?

Posted on 11 June 2017 by Spuggy

Fair to say, most people did not predict the result of the election. A few pollsters were correct – Survation and YouGov, take a bow – but most thought that even if May didn’t get the landslide she wanted, at … Continue reading →

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Sparrow Songs: Instrumentality

Posted on 4 June 2017 by Spuggy

Our website went down for a bit because the ‘Confirm your identity’ emails got sent to the spam folder. Oh well. We’re back (hopefully). So, here are some more songs. This time, let’s go for some instrumentals!

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Sparrow Songs: Old and New Yorkshire

Posted on 28 May 2017 by Spuggy

I came of age in the mid-2000s, in a musical era when guitars had to be described as “angular”, beats as “danceable”, accents as “provincial”, and NME promised that the nexy big thing was New Yorkshire. A lot of the hyped bands … Continue reading →

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Sparrow Songs: Some Soul

Posted on 24 May 2017 by Spuggy

Let’s try something new. Every week (when I remember), I’m going to post a few songs here. Just whatever I’m listening to, really. Anyway, let’s get the ball rolling with a bit of soul.

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New Moon

Posted on 1 May 2017 by Spuggy

? “Ooh, is that the Moon?” asked Fortitude, pointing her photo finger towards a white dot in the sky. “No, Mom, that’s just a drone. You can’t see the Moon until night, usually,” replied her left-daughter Balance, rolling her eyes. … Continue reading →

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Other Thoughts: The Chrysalids and the Midwich Cuckoos, by John Wyndham

Posted on 31 March 2017 by Spuggy

Back when Waterstones still did 3-for-2 deals, I picked up the entire John Wyndham collection – since his 6* novels conveniently fit the offer perfectly – read 3 and forgot about them. Oops. Recently, I finally got round to reading the … Continue reading →

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