Amnesty ad on Shell

Amnesty International press release explains what happened:

Amnesty ‘disappointed’ by FT’s decision to pull ad targeting Shell

Posted: 18 May 2010

Financial Times’ late call thwarts Amnesty’s campaign

Amnesty International UK expressed its immense disappointment today at the Financial Times’ decision to pull a new hard-hitting advertisement at the last possible moment. The ad was due to appear today as Shell held its London AGM.

The advertisement focused on the appalling human rights record of Shell in Nigeria. It compared the company’s $9.8bn profits with the consequences of pollution caused by the oil giant for the people of the Niger Delta.

Numerous oil spills, which have not been adequately cleaned up, have left local communities with little option but to drink polluted water, eat contaminated fish, farm on spoiled land, and breathe in air that stinks of oil and gas.

Tim Hancock, Amnesty International UK’s campaigns director, said:

“The decision by the Financial Times is extremely disappointing. We gave them written reassurances that we would take full responsibility for the comments and opinions stated in the advertisement.

“Both The Metro and The Evening Standard had no problems with running the ad.”

Tim Hancock added:

“The money to pay for the advertisements came entirely from more than 2,000 individuals online, who we’d asked to fund an ad campaign targeting Shell’s AGM – and it really caught their imagination. And I am sure these supporters will share with us our sense of deep disappointment.”

ENDS.

This ad is also currently posted here:

Roy Greenslade, Media Guardian Blog

Independent

Boing Boing

Comment is Free

New Statesman

http://royaldutchshellplc.com/

http://www.pickledpolitics.com/

http://www.newvibes.com/blog/the-amnesty-ad-the-financial-times-pulled/

http://jerometurner.posterous.com/shell-oil-drinks-are-on-them

http://liberalconspiracy.org/

http://blog.indexoncensorship.org/

http://exileonmoanstreet.blogspot.com/

http://www.kestrel.org/?p=27823

http://brightgreenscotland.org/

http://ramtops.livejournal.com/580790.html

http://earwicga.wordpress.com/

http://eastdunbartonshiressp.blogspot.com/

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http://www.adexamples.co.uk/

http://cruttenden.blogspot.com/

http://www.timnunn.com/

http://daimiaen.blogspot.com/

http://nowherefamiliar.blogspot.com/

http://amnestybristol.ning.com/

http://carmenego.wordpress.com/

http://williamheath.net/

http://www.elliottrodgers.com/

http://chris-coltrane.livejournal.com/

http://www.ekklesia.co.uk/

http://current.com/

http://www.mediaspy.org/

http://communicatemagazine.co.uk/

http://ninesheets.com/

http://www.akirathedon.com/

http://trickygirl.wordpress.com/

http://www.thecommentfactory.com/

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http://calumcarr.blogspot.com/

http://thenovocastrian.wordpress.com/

http://www.searchthenetnow.com/

http://www.bitterwallet.com/

http://www.mediaweek.co.uk/

http://www.brandrepublic.com/

http://priceofoil.org/

http://chrispaul-labouroflove.blogspot.com/

http://www.thisdayonline.com/

http://www.fastcompany.com/

http://planetgreen.discovery.com/

http://www.democraticunderground.com/

http://www.thedetoxshop.net/

http://globalpoverty.change.org/

http://afrodissident.wordpress.com/

http://adexamples.posterous.com/

http://climateandcapitalism.com/

http://osocio.org/

http://awolmonk.blogspot.com/

http://www.brandrepublic.com/

http://www.care2.com/

http://makewealthhistory.org/

http://www.4us2be.com/

http://newsnetmidlands.blogspot.com/

http://kalinago.blogspot.com/

http://dialannscott.blogspot.com/

http://cubiksrube.wordpress.com/

http://www.pressetext.at/

http://www.arretsurimages.net/

http://www.blowe.org.uk/

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First spotted by @SarahDitum

The good people of Twitter got very angry about this and ‘Danny Dyer’ started trending pretty damn quickly. I, of course, complained to Zoo along with lots of other people. And I offered to collect the crowd-sourced contact details for the Zoo Editorial Staff and the magazine’s advertisers so that other people could complain as well (details at the bottom, I’ll come on to that).

By the end of the day, Zoo had offered a groveling apology (this is a link to Zoo’s website please go and leave a comment), Danny had said he was ‘misquoted’ and even the bloke who wrote the original letter came out of the woodwork (in a great post on this from Dr Petra). I really do believe that such a quick response came due to the involvement of social media in all this. Here’s the apology from Zoo:

Email response from Zoo Editor, sent by Claire Hodgson:

Dear Naomi,

Thank you for your email regarding this week’s issue.

Firstly, let me unreservedly apologise for the inappropriate and
indefensible response to a letter which appeared. I am very sorry for any
offence it has caused.

Danny Dyer, and everyone else that works on Zoo condemn any violence against women, and by way of a sincere apology we are making a donation to Women’s Aid.

An internal enquiry is underway to find out how this extremely regrettable production error occurred and I will be tightening up any procedures necessary to ensure it cannot happen again.

We have already posted an apology on our website and will also be printing a fuller apology in next week’s issue.

Regards

Tom Etherington

Editor
Zoo Magazine

*****************************************

Right, I’d like to make a couple of points….

1. Has any one noticed the line above the face slashy bit in Danny’s advice:

I’d suggest going out on a rampage…and smashing anything that moves

Now, when I first read this I thought it meant going around smashing things like bus shelters and cars. Then I realised that it said “anything that moves“, so men, women, children, animals, animate objects. I’m just saying, he might have a fucking problem.

Update: I didn’t believe this at first, but apparently ’smashing’ means fucking. Which is much less disturbing… It just means he’s advocating sex with anything that moves; woman, man, child or animal. Yeah?

2. Danny Dyer has claimed that his words were taken out of context which makes me fascinated by what context would make face slashing acceptable…

…the other option is to cut off contact with your ex and face reality…?

Doubt it.

3. “Production error” my arse. Who accidentally lent on a keyboard and “slash a woman’s face” came out? If this stuff is being written in your office, you might want to remove any cutlery and sharp objects.

4. I would believe that this was a “production error” that had been left in by accident by some dumbass intern if it wasn’t for the fact that these errors seem to happen EVERY FUCKING WEEK. Last month, Dyer recommended setting fire to a woman. Another error? Or just business as usual in this wankstain of a rag.

So this is why I’m still recommending that you complain to Zoo and to their advertisers. Their ‘apology’ demonstrates that they are open to criticism and correction, they just have never got it so hard and fast before. Plus it didn’t just come from a bunch of ‘usual suspects’ who they have easily dismissed before. So let’s keep it up.

Below are the contact details which I am still happy to collect by crowd source (tweet them to me@naomimc) and repost as I get new ones.

And just to remind you who we are dealing with here….!

Zoo twitter: @ZOO_UK
Zoo email: info@zootoday.com
Tom Etherington, Editor: Tom.Etherington@zootoday.com
Claire Hodgson, Editorial Asst: claire.hodgson@zootoday.com

Bauer Media, who own Zoo:
Jane Windsor, Corporate Communications: jane.windsor@bauermedia.co.uk
Sarah Ewing, Consumer Magazines – Trade: sarah.ewing@bauermedia.co.uk
Jess Blake, Consumer Magazines – Consumer PR: jess.blake@bauermedia.co.uk
Genevieve Potter, Specialist Magazines (Peterborough): genevieve.potter@bauermedia.co.uk
Catherine Gort, Big City Network Radio: catherine.gort@bauermedia.co.uk
Hermione Clulow (Braben), Magic & KISS: hermione@braben.co.uk
Sarah Ewing, National Radio: sarah.ewing@bauermedia.co.uk

Zoo Advertisers
Kellogg’s: pressoffice@kellogg.com
@KelloggsUK
Aloud.com: feedback@aloud.com
Virgin Media: lucy.atabey@virginmedia.co.uk
Love Film:
Marketing: m@lovefilm.comm@lovefilm.com
Public Relations: pr@lovefilm.com
Advertising and research: advertising@lovefilm.com

Other good links on this story:
Ophelia Bottom (heh)
Dr Petra
Index on Censorship – Nigel Warburton guest post.

Men! Ha! Aren't they stupid!

So, men eh? Always thinking about sex, leer at women, lie, can’t communicate, fall asleep after sex – you’re all the same and it’s hardwired into your brain. It’s like the punchlines from those dull, unfunny ‘10 Jokes About Men!!’ emails I get forwarded every-so-often (and then think less of the person who sent it to me). But this is all coming from Dr Louann Brizendine in her new book ‘The Male Brain‘.

This book looks like the perfect example of how lazy, boring gender stereotyping harms men as well as women. Dr Brizendine already targeted women in the imaginately titled ‘The Female Brain‘ back in 2006 where she wrongly claimed that women use an average of 20,000 words a day compared with only 7,000 for men (link to a funny article from The Guardian on this). Indeed, she removed this claim from the paperback version after the journal Nature said that she had failed “to meet even the most basic standards of scientific accuracy and balance”. So its not looking good.

First up, I haven’t read the book and am not sure whether I’m really prepared to stump up £12.99 to read it and, importantly, check out her sources. On the otherhand, I don’t have much of a life…

However, on the basis of what I can glean from the articles about the book (which obviously contain no references), it seems like ‘men’ are portrayed somewhere between an Andy Capp cartoon and a vile concoction from the minds of Loose Women (for Americans; this is like The View but the co-hosts are replaced with all-female gnashing, orange cruise-ship singers and Fox News pundits).

This is probably the most telling two sentences from The Times piece:

“[Brizendine] a US talk-show regular, draws her sweeping conclusions from a wide array of scientific data as well as her 25-year experience as a practising psychiatrist. To make her book palatable for the non-scientific reader she mixes established scientific fact with more recent untested theories.”

And there in lies the problem. Fact mixed in with some bullshit.

I have no doubt that there is variation between male and female brains. At the very least females menstruate and estrogen is critically involved in the sexual differentiation of the brain. The problem I have is the massive, culturally-blind leap that is made from differences in brain morphology and neurochemistry and men shouting while they’re driving or leering at women in public.

This very interesting review study in Biological Psychiatry, looks at sex differences in brain structure, function and chemistry and finds that there are many simiarities but significant differences including regional differences, blood flow and hormone receptors. The significance of these differences is in the treatment of disorders NOT shopping traits:

“These sex-specific differences in the healthy brain highlight the need to evaluate sex differences in neuropsychiatric disorders especially those that differ in prevalence and symptoms between men and women.”

Therefore, it is important to understand sex differences in the brain in order to understand neuropsychiatric disorders better while, as the paper states, taking into account genetic and environmental influences.

But more than anything, I really hope that any self-respecting man reading these articles is dismayed. Those that can communicate, aren’t violent and aren’t ‘pervs’ (according to The Times of India) do exist. I’ve met them. Moreover, I am more than a little unsettled when supposed ‘male’ behaviour is very familiar to me such as when someone tells you they have a problem you try and come up with a solution. Surely that’s just rational?

Also the heady mix of fact and bullshit leads to terrible reporting in the press and headlines such as: ‘Why your man will NEVER understand how you feel‘ and ‘Men Fib, Cheat and are Obsessed with Sex‘. Really not particularly helpful and very far from scientific.

Hedy Lamarr

Today is International Ada Lovelace Day, a day of blogging in celebration of women in science and technology. I’ve blogged a few times before about women in these areas including the myth of the computer science gene and women and open source.

So in honour of the day I want to say a little bit about Hedy Lamarr, an actor and engineer who helped invent an early form of spread spectrum communications technology, the basis for Wi-Fi.

She led a pretty amazing life and is one of the reasons I am writing this blog on my lap-top on my sofa (well, her and my utter laziness)

10 Facts about her:

1. Born in 1914 in Vienna, her name was Hedwig
2. Her mother was a pianist and her father a bank director.
3. Her film career was stifled by her controlling husband, an arms manufacturer, so instead she set about learning about military technology.
4. Although her husband was half-Jewish (she was also Jewish), he hung out with Hitler and Mussolini. This obviously didn’t sit easy with her and so she disguised herself as one of the maids and fled to Paris where she got a divorce and moved on to London.
5. He was the first of six husbands.
6. In London and then Hollywood, she went back to making films but got into developing a secret communication system with her neighbour, the avant garde composer George Antheil, after getting into a conversation about radio controlled torpedos.
7. Her idea of “frequency hopping” was completely new and Antheil’s contribution was the suggested device for synchronization.
8. It was ahead of its time but ended up becoming the basis of modern spread-spectrum communication technology such as most WiFi networks.
9. She died in 2000 and in 2003, Boeing ran an ad campaign featuring her as a woman of science, not referring to her acting career.
10. In 2005, the first ‘Inventors Day’ was held in German-speaking countries on 9 November, her birthday.

I think, I think I love her.

I thought fair enough and sauntered off to Boots to buy a jar. As it turns out, I’ve never actually got round to trying it. Then recently, with all of the hullabaloo around homeopathy, I decided to look up Evening Primrose Oil (EPO) on PubMed to find this:

Evidence-based management of Mastalgia: a meta-analysis of randomised trials

Which states:

“EPO did not offer any advantage over placebo in pain relief”

Now this pissed me off lots and lots. I had believed that my medically trained GP would suggest something that was evidence-based and had not done so because either a) she was unaware of the current evidence and/or was one of these CAM-peddling NHS doctors or b) she was trying to placebo my ass. Both of which are troubling.

Firstly, if it was because she was unaware/a CAM peddler then this undermines my trust in the medical opinion of NHS doctors (and none of this “but she was only a GP”). Not everyone is going to check their medical advice online or if they do they are more likely to come across pseudoscience and quackery than know where to look for a systematic review. We can’t check everything all the time and so generally we rely on the expertise of those we assume will have more knowledge than us.

Obviously this was a very minor aliment for me and so I didn’t check. Most people on finding out that they have a serious illness do and should investigate it as much as possible.

But secondly, if she was trying to palm me off with a placebo then I’m fucking livid. There is over-prescribing in certain areas of general practice because people go expecting an intervention for their health problem. I, however, didn’t want an intervention and mentioned the jublies pain as an aside.

If she knew that EPO only acted as a placebo not telling me has left me feeling stupid and lied to. If I had had all the information at the time I would have made a different decision on the basis that the tit ache isn’t that bad, just a mild annoyance, and chocolate is my preferred placebo.

This of course links nicely to homeopathy; if it is simply a placebo then doesn’t the positive outcome justify the means? The placebo effect is real and therefore if homeopathy works solely as a placebo can’t it still ‘help’?

The significance is displayed in my outrage at finding out that EPO has no evidence-base for treating bap pain. I felt stupid and disempowered. I had been made an unwilling victim of marketing over substance. And this is what is wrong about homeopathy; its marketing and spin masquerading as authoritative medical knowledge. It dupes individuals into thinking they are taking control of their own health when in fact they are not being given access to the full facts.

If you want to know what my GP should have done, here’s a handy guideline flow-chart from NHS Lothian (*cough* her Health Board).

For people with ouchy knockers there’s some helpful guidance here and here.

On Saturday at 10.23am hundreds of people across the country opened a small vial of pills and swallow them all. There was a group of 42 of these people in Edinburgh (video), but no emergency services were called and no deaths or complications were reported. This was because it was a mass overdose of homeopathic remedies.

The ‘Swallowers’, as they are delicately calling themselves, are conducting this stunt as part of the 10:23 campaign (hence the timing) which seeks to raise awareness about the case against homeopathy and those who supply it.

As one of the organisers of the London event, Carmen D’Cruz put it:

“The public have the right to know what we put into our bodies. “Freedom of choice” is not possible without the ability to make an informed decision. A large part of this campaign is to raise public awareness of what homeopathy actually is. Once people understand both sides of an argument, they are better able to make a real choice.”

Homeopathy was invented by Samuel Hahnemann, a German physician, in the late 18th century. It is based on the principle that “like cures like”, but significantly, that a substance taken in small amounts will cure the same symptoms it would cause if taken in large amounts. And when I say small amounts …

Homeopathic remedies are usually diluted to a factor of 30c, that is:

1:1000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000.

Or to give you some idea of what that represents; imagine a sphere of water with a diameter from the Earth to the Sun (a distance that takes light, yes light, about 8 minutes to travel), then imagine one single molecule of that sphere is an active ingredient of the substance that is supposed to cure you. Remember, it isn’t a drop; it’s a single molecule. THAT is what 30c looks like.

Homeopaths claim that this works because water “has a memory” which preserves the active ingredient through the dilutions due to a special shaking. After each dilution the mixture is vigorously agitated in a machine that delivers a calibrated amount of shaking (That last sentence was a direct quote from the Society of Homeopaths website, just in case anyone thinks I’m trying to make them sound stupid. I mean actively trying to make them sound stupid).

Many scientists say that the only possible impact of such remedies is as a placebo.

Therefore, there was no need to perform mouth-to-mouth on any Swallowers. But what are the implications? Raise awareness yes, but should these remedies be provided on the NHS? Should commercial businesses be able to sell them?

This is the second aim of the 10:23 campaign, targeting outlets such as Boots. As D’Cruz explains: “It’s a bit unethical for Boots to sell these pills in their medicine section whilst admitting they don’t work. They’re a trusted company. Why are they lying to their customers (or at least being ambiguous with the truth)?”

Many who wouldn’t go so far as to defend the “science” of homeopathy will at least espouse the positive effects of placebo. And indeed the effects of placebo are amazing and well documented. But should we market a product that we know is a placebo with a mythology of how it works? I would argue that this kind of marketing has a corrosive effect on the public’s understanding of science and medicine. Rather than empowering the patient, it dupes them in the time-honoured tradition of the snake-oils salesmen.

But this stunt has got some people’s backs up. “My inbox is full to the brim with people from all over telling me how much they enjoyed taking part,” says D’Cruz, “with only two people contacting me who were against what we were trying to do.”

“One of them was actually really lovely, and seemed glad that I’d replied in a sensible way (I suggested a couple of books she might find interesting to see things from my point of view if I wasn’t being articulate enough: Trick or Treatment and Bad Science). The other said I was an attention seeker and that I should be arrested. I’m pretty sure that was my mum. She’s got a really good sense of humour.”

To those who have taken homeopathic remedies and believe that they cured them, it is scientifically more likely that you experienced the placebo effect (you got better because you thought you were going to get better) or regression to the mean (you were going to get better anyway, like with a cold).

Now let’s not talk down the placebo effect, it is a truly amazing phenomenon. People have even got better with placebo surgery. It doesn’t mean that you were previously faking it; believing an intervention will make you better can really can make you better (listen to Dr Ben Goldacre’s two part radio programme on the placebo effect).

We can and should harness the power of the placebo effect without misleading people. And we should be just as uneasy with the aggressive marketing of the billion dollar homeopathy industry as we are of the (albeit bigger) billion pharmaceutical industry.

Links:
More on the overdose in Edinburgh
Follow 10:23 tweets: #1023

And a historical look at Apple vs Feminine Hygiene (boak) marketing. Hmmmm.

Via Society for Menstrual Cycle Research.

I don’t know where to even begin with this story as it is so chocka block with the most ridiculous statements I have ever read that it has rendered me speechless (for the time being). I will come back to the plastic packaging turning boys into girls soon as that little gem has been doing the rounds for a while and is, guess what, shite.

So I turned instead to our old friend, the Daily Telegraph who confidently tells us: ‘Married women ‘4lbs heavier than unmarried counterparts” and for good measure, includes the subheading: ‘Women really do let themselves go when they get married according to a new study which found that they are 4lbs heavier than their unmarried counterparts.’

Now, the Daily Telegraph have a rich history of ensuring that their headlines and subheadings have only a tangential bearing on the facts within the story, as demonstrated well in this previous article on rape. And they don’t let us down here.

This article is based on a paper; ‘Effects of Having a Baby on Weight Gain‘, published in the American Journal of Preventive Medicine. The purpose of the research was to see how much weight gain within a cohort of women was attributable to having a baby or to other factors.

Spot the difference between that and the headline?

The article goes on to explain some of the possible reasons why women who live with a partner and have a baby are heavier than those that don’t which include “eating unhealthier food because of their partner” and having less time for exercise.

So not ‘letting themselves go’ then? And actually one of the reasons points to both of the partners eating unhealthily. But no, of course it is much easier to tap into the stereotypical myth of people ‘going to seed’ after getting married. In this instance it’s women only bothering to keep thin till they get a man then stuffing their cake-holes with, er, cakes. They are therefore tricking men into marrying them then ballooning up to 4lbs heavier.

Why does the Daily Telegraph stop there, why don’t they just go the full Burt Bacharach?

Firstly, I’m genuinely very interested in her views on chemotherapy and the science and medicine behind the development of breast cancer treatment. Its not my area of expertise, but I’ll follow up on her sources from the book. If any readers know more please link to studies in the comments. But in summary, here is Ehrenreich talking about her book and why if she ‘had her time again’ she wouldn’t go through chemotherapy:

Plus, she believes (probably rightly) that it was the HRT that she was on that ‘caused’ or increased her risk of getting breast cancer. Certainly, there is increasing evidence for a link between HRT and breast cancer.

The two things that really struck me from the extract from her book in the Guardian was a) the devaluing of negativity and b) the particular reliance on a narrow definition of ‘ultrafemininity’ in breast cancer campaigning.

Ehrenreich’s whole book is about how alienating and divisive the positive-wash that cancer is given can be, how she was encouraged to view her cancer as an ‘opportunity’ or even ‘gift’ and how her anger and frustration were often scorned by others. This kind of approach is something that pisses me off on a far less extreme or important level than Ehrenreich – but I think is part of an approach within Western cultures to gloss over the shite in life.

I agree we shouldn’t wallow in negativity and if we focus on all the bad things in life we become insular, boring Emos, or worse, Goths. But sometimes we need to call a spade a fucking useless piece of shit shovel. Sometimes negativity is a good thing, a real emotion, actually brings perspective to what is positive and denying the steaming piles of turd in life can be hugely damaging.

Ehrenreich points to a few studies in the Guardian column*:

• Emotional well-being does not predict survival in head and neck cancer patients: a Radiation Therapy Oncology Group study. Cancer. 2007 Dec 1;110(11):2568-75.
• Guardian article links to Discover article on the study: Hope may be useless against cancer.
• Tomich, P. L., & Helgeson, V. S.  (2004).  Is finding something good in the bad always good?  Benefit finding among women with breast cancer.  Health Psychology, 23, 16-23. Summary here.
• Optimism and survival in lung carcinoma patients, Cancer. 2004 Mar 15; 100(6): 1276-82.
• Guardian article links to Medical News Today article: A positive attitude does not help cancer outcome.

* See some writers can link to primary sources!!

These studies show that at best “positive thinking” does not affect cancer survival but at worse that it can lead to the “tyranny of positive thinking” which can conceal distress and leave patients feeling worse. So if you’ve got cancer – its alright to feel shit, angry and frustrated. That doesn’t mean you’re allowed to be a full-time arsehole but you can let rip once and while.

The second point that I found striking was the specific type of femininity attached to breast cancer and breast cancer awareness/campaigning and again I don’t think this is a wholly positive thing. Breast cancer campaigning has been incredibly successful, has turned around society’s perception of what was once a hidden and shameful disease and with that has raised phenomenal amounts of money for breast cancer research. But, as Ehrenreich points out, this has been inextricably linked to stereotype of ultrafemininity which is pink, fluffy, appearance-focussed and somewhat reductive of womanhood to boobies.

Possibly the worst example of this, which I have linked to before, is this breast cancer awareness advert for a ‘BoobiBall’ fundraiser:

Breast cancer awareness tends to promote the notion that women are and indeed should be obsessed with their appearance and that the loss of a or both breasts is the worst possible thing that could happen to a woman. Not to mention the hair loss, weight gain or loss, effect on skin etc.

Now there is no doubt that hair loss and mammectomy hugely affect a number of women with cancer and alter their sense of identity or femininity. My concern would be that this emphasis on the femininity of those going through cancer treatment may exacerbate this impact. Ehrenreich talks about the breast cancer marketplace with the prominence of cosmetics and jewellery and websites that talk about chemotherapy helping you to lose weight and smooth out the skin.

What is significant here is that this same femininity is not associated with lung cancer or heart disease – both huge killers of women as well as men. It is associated with uniquely female breasts** and therefore with women’s bodies being the be-all and end-all of their identity.

** I’d be fascinated to know how men with breast cancer relate to breast cancer campaigning.

Breast cancer is seen not only as a disease attacking part of the body but attacking a woman’s identity because women’s identity is so dominated by their physical appearance and attractiveness (with a special focus on breasts). Unfortunately, as with many things, this focus on ultrafemininity is couched in feminist empowerment language and indeed, in America at least, feminism seems to have been replaced by a breast cancer cult.

Maybe less of a focus on how a woman looks during treatment for a life threatening disease is the least we can offer them?

However, I’m back and it’s the future! Personally, 2009 was a bit of a shitter but 2010 is already looking better for the following reasons.

Firstly, I recommend you listen to the fabulous podcast The Pod Delusion, not only because it is a fellow guest blogger/Podder on the Lay Scientist, but because it named me No.2 Best blogs of 2009 thanks to the infatigable Crispian Jago.

Secondly, watch out for me guest blogging elsewhere this year and giving some talks around UK-shire…more on this when all is confirmed.

And lastly a quick plug for Skeptics in the Pub London and Westminster. Do come along if you’re in London I’m often found propping up the bar PLUS the next gigs feature the wonderful Kat Akingbade (London – remember to book here) and Dr Petra Boynton (Westminster). Look women are taking over – hurrah!