Mark Irvine - Blogger, Campaigner, Organiser

For years I've always understood that Space/Time is a continuum which rippled out in every direction after the Big Bang, as space continued to expand over time while time continued to pass as the universe grows and gets bigger every day. Yet this article from The Independent suggests that the Big Bang created another, completely different universe where times runs backwards, would you believe?   Now I can just about get my head around this business of Schrodinger's Cat and the notion that certain atomic particles can be in two places at the same time. But I can't quite grasp, so far at least, how time could possibly run backwards and forwards at the same time - because how exactly would that work? I was going to read the two links in article which might lead me to a greater level of human understanding, but I've decided to go to the pub instead; the Physical Review Letters can wait for another day.      ...

The Independent ran an amusing story the other day with some of the best and worst 'foot in mouth' quotes of 2014 including these two beauties from UKIP which make dumb excuses for key party figures. Now I'm almost never late for appointments, but normal human beings don't blame their travel problems of immigration - nor do they excuse the use of offensive language on the (alleged) use of sedatives.   Excuse of the Year (Runner-Up) “It took me six hours and 15 minutes in the car to get here. It should have taken three and a half to four. That has nothing to do with professionalism. What it does have to do with is a population that is going through the roof chiefly because of open-door immigration and the fact that the M4 is not as navigable as it used to be.” – Ukip leader Nigel Farage on why he was two hours late for the party’s first Welsh conference in Port Talbot. Excuse of the Year (Strong Contender) “That was a phone call made a long time ago whil...

According to this report in The Sunday Herald normal levels of hostile relations seem to have been restored to the Scottish Labour Party, now that the recent leadership contest is out of the way. Now I don't know Stephen Low and I certainly don't carry a torch for Neil Findlay, but I find it hard to disagree with the comment that Jim Murphy's "ingrained" Scottishness is just making things up for political convenience, as if the municipal socialism that's on offer from Labour these days is part of Scotland's political and cultural landscape. No wonder some folks in the Labour Party refuse to go along with this kind of silly talk which tries to claim some non-existent special empathy with Robert Burns while completely ignoring the contributions of other famous Scots such as David Hume and Adam Smith, for example.           Murphy accused of 'abandoning truth' by former spin doctor of Labour leadership opponent Paul Hutcheon Inves...

Everyone and their uncle is getting their tuppence worth in about the likely outcome of next UK general election in May 2015.   Nothing's certain if you ask me, although another hung Westminster Parliament looks all but  inevitable since the voters don't trust the Conservatives or Labour sufficiently to hand either party a working majority of MPs. Dan Hodges, as a former Labour supporter and GMB union official, thinks that Labour's Ed Miliband is a busted flush; a leader who has finally run out of steam having had very little of substance to say to begin with.  Ed Miliband’s wind of change is all puffed out The Labour leader has neither the personality nor the policies to take the Tories down in 2015 By Dan Hodges  - The Telegraph Can you sense it? It’s in the air. Britain is on the brink of change. A new year, a fresh beginning. The old order is about to be swept away. The electricity of renewal. Can you feel it? No. Of course you can’t. Because ...

Private Eye, the UK's best and only fortnightly satirical magazine, published a spoof diary from Valerie Trieweiler, the former First Lady of France who was dumped in the most unchivalrous fashion by the French President, François Hollande. So Valerie took her revenge by publishing a 'kiss and tell' book which I haven't read I have to admit, but I presume it provides some of the inspiration for the Private Eye diary, so here's an extract. DIARY  "H ow could I forget those first few years of passion with François. That once in a lifetime passion that devours everything. I was a young journalist, so wide-eyed and unworldly that I was barely on my second marriage. He was the proud standard bearer of the Left, passionate about equality, liberty and fraternity, but whose life had taken a tragic turn for the worse after he unwittingly fathered four children but he cold, haughty Ségolène Royal. So concerned was he with the poor and the oppressed t...

Whatever you think of UKIP, the party at least has a clear political strategy: the European Union is to blame for all the country's problems, so let's get out of the EU, take control of our own borders and stand on our own two feet. Bonkers if you ask me, but very simple and easy to understand. Meanwhile, over in Greece, politics is in turmoil once again and an early general election called for 25 January 2015 may bring a new left wing political party to power, Syriza, which is standing on an anti-austerity platform while blaming the EU for turning the Greek economy into a basket case.   Yet Syriza's solution is not to leave the EU, but to stay in and ask other member countries to forgive Greece its huge debts while ignoring the fact that the mess Greece finds itself in has much to do with the country's addiction to tax avoidance - a national pastime that is endemic across all sections of Greek society. In other words, Syr...