There’s another clutch of reviews of The Wisdom of Whores posted to the “What They’re Saying” page. They include Rachel Holmes in The Times (she thinks I’m a nerd, in the best possible way), Michael Fitzpatrick in The Guardian (who seems vaguely disapproving), Stephanie Merritt in the Observer (who is seduced by the mysteries of [...]
It’s been a busy day on the airwaves. Unaccustomed as I am to public speaking, I managed to hit BBC World TV’s HardTalk interview and be on BBC Radio 4′s Start the Week, both in one day. On HardTalk, Stephen Sackur spent a lot of time quizzing me about my mafia connections. Comments have ranged [...]
Britain’s Office of Government Commerce says its mission is to “drive up standards and procurement”. To help in this dynamic task, they’ve got a new logo. As I understand it, procurement is illegal in the UK, at least when it comes to procuring partners for pleasure. But if you turn the new logo on its [...]
Last night, I happened to be trawling around some of London’s gay entertainment establishments. I was struck by how much things have changed since John Ashbery was moved to write his classic elegy to AIDS, How to Continue. Here it is, lest we forget. How to Continue” by John Ashbery Oh there once was a [...]
Some readers may have had yesterday’s literary post zoned out by the language police. By happy coincidence, Blog Around the Clock drew my attention to the cuss-o-meter, and I ran The Wisdom through it. Just 16.6% of my posts are grubby, which shows there’s lot more science than sex on this blog. I note, though, [...]
London’s a great city to walk around; reading an anthology of London poetry before embarking on another epic city walk, I came across a couple of gems from the Scottish poet William Dunbar. Here’s Dunbar’s description of courtship, in a modern translation: “His pretty beard was combed and trimmed, but it was spattered with broth, [...]
Last night I waded in to an interesting discussion about Alzheimer’s disease and memory loss at the (always interesting) Dana Centre. One woman observed that the selective memory loss that goes with Alzheimer’s could be a blessing, because it allowed people to wipe away recent bitterness and return to happier stages in their relationships. Interesting [...]
Professors are baring their souls and tastes on line, Stephanie Rosenblum of The New York Times reports with some incredulity. She rightly questions whether sharing your taste in music and your cat snaps with students really makes you a better teacher. “Sam Gosling, a psychologist and an associate professor at the University of Texas at [...]
Some US States may be adding “sex offender” to the charge sheet of HIV-infected people having unprotected sex, but Britain is heading in the opposite direction. At least I think so. New guidance issued by the Crown Prosecution Service suggests that people can’t be convicted for one-off acts of risk or folly. The original law [...]
Tom Levenson of the World’s Best Illuminated Blog the The Inverse Square tagged me with the 123 meme. The rules: * look up page 123 in the book that is nearest to you at this very minute * look for the fifth sentence * then post the three sentences that follow that fifth sentence on [...]
Untuk kawan-kawan pembaca di Indonesia: di CCF Salemba ada pameran tentang AIDS, dan juga akan putar film “Harapan Lahir Dari Pengetahuan”. Menerutku judul aggak norah, tetapi gaya film belum tentu ikut judulnya, kan?
The Center for Global Development invites readers to rename PEPFAR, the 15-soon-to-be-at-least-45 billion dollar aid programme for HIV care (and a bit of prevention) in developing countries. The finalists are now open for voting on; they include such inspirational suggestions as American Sustainable HIV/AIDS Relief Plan (A-SHARP) and Program to Encourage Partnerships Focused on AIDS [...]
Check out this Valentine’s day poem from Isabella Matambanadzo, who fights the good fight in Zimbabwe and understands the importance of good underwear. Here’s how it starts, just to give you a flavour. I dressed for the occasion. Put my cute fanny in lace nickers, Gave my breasts some serious gravity (EJ Win always says [...]
Lopping off foreskins reduces HIV transmission. But we haven’t always known that. Indeed when I was in grad school (not ALL that long ago) I remember being given a paper overlaying a map of tribal circumcision practices in Africa with HIV rates. The paper concluded that circumcision might slow the spread of HIV; it was [...]
Brits tend to look down on the US for allowing fundamentalist fervour to drive politics. But Britain would do well to look at the rise of the tub-thumpers at home. Check out the plans for a Christian theme park in Lancashire, modeled, perhaps, on the Holy Land Experience in Orlando, Florida. In keeping with Britain’s [...]
In an eminently sensible commentary in this week’s Lancet (Drop of HIV estimate for India to less than half — access may require painless free registration), Lalit and Rakhi Dandona explain how India managed to overestimate the number of people living with HIV by over 100%, adding a cool 2.7 million notional HIV infections to [...]
Great excitement in New York, where girls wiped the board in the Siemens Competition in Math, Science and Technology, which a New York Times article describes as “one of [America's] most coveted student science awards”. It’s no great surprise to me that girls are doing better than boys in science and maths. Indeed I heard [...]
This morning, The Guardian newspaper published a commentary (We can’t wait for equality) that I had written about the role of the sexes (or the genders, if you’re coming over all PC) in the HIV epidemic. My point was that in most of the world, HIV is a man’s disease. The original version (and the [...]
