“When all the world is mad,” the great G. H. Hardy once opined, “a mathematician may find in mathematics an incomparable anodyne.” If he’s right – and he usually was – now is probably one of those rare moments when you should envy the college mathematicians. The latest round of climate talks has collapsed into what can only be described as paroxysms of indecision, a messy, convulsive end to a Kafkaesque farce of lacklustre delegates and bizarre intergovernmental pranks. Cabals issuing cynical fake documents, intimate ministerial “huddles to save the world”, and high-profile threats to walk out left the conference in Durban looking more like a hideous soap-opera than a measured, progressive discussion. As one impassioned commentator chillingly remarked, “it’s a disastrous, profoundly distressing outcome” . Citizens of Earth, tremble in your socks. In a strange way, the one constructive element of Durban 2011 is also its most appalling. Oddly, we do now have a ...

One reads the headline in the morning’s Telegraph with that familiar crushing feeling: ‘Oxford Tories’ nights of port and Nazi songs’. A gruesome illustrated litany follows, listing the less wholesome doings of members of the Oxford University Conservative Association. The Telegraph , whose known editorial politics make the article unlikely to be motivated by party political considerations, indicts OUCA on the counts of "anti-Semitism, debauchery and snobbery". The Telegraph ’s online edition confirms that it is not déjà vu one is feeling. We are invited to click on ‘Related Links’ to articles headlined ‘Oxford student Tories in racism row’ (June 2009), and, with comic predictability, ‘Oxford student Tories in sexism row’ (June 2010). Perhaps one is being too charitable, but it is difficult to believe that OUCA is an unequivocally or even predominantly racist (sexist, elitist, anti-Semitic...) institution. That its officers have been sufficiently ...

To outsiders the world of the English boarding school can occasionally seem incomprehensibly foreign: the esoteric slang, the strangely archaic routines and the flamboyantly Edwardian dress codes tending to elicit amusement and derision in equal measure. These things can be, and generally are, seen as essentially harmless. They are throwbacks to bygone eras, of interest only to the eccentric antiquarian seduced by these pockets of Victorian idiosyncrasy which Britain has managed to preserve over the years with little but an occasional swipe from an embittered Guardian columnist. The cream of English boarding schools live on in their quirky outdated grandeur across the country, keeping themselves to themselves and their peculiar rituals intact. Scattered across the English countryside, self-sufficient and withdrawn into themselves like monasteries, each one is an island. Even exceptions like Harrow, which has now been swallowed by the relentless march of London’s urban sprawl, stil ...

I’m meeting 19 year old author Ben Brooks to talk about his most recent novel Grow Up . He’s pretty camera- and interview-shy it seems, preferring to promote himself through interviews with publications like web-based lit-journal HTMLGIANT. All I know of Brooks in the flesh is that he’s ‘a heartthrob’ ( Dazed and Confused ) and ‘has a killer fringe’ ( Don’t Panic ). I’m also told he’s “fucking righteous” ( HTMLG ) When he arrives he’s quiet. He has an intricate tattoo of a rose on his right bicep, half obscured by a the sleeve of a denim jacket. His fringe is confirmed as totally killer. For the last week I’ve been reading and re-reading Grow Up in prep. I can’t help but compliment him on various lines that have gotten stuck in my head. The new best description of a hangover ever: “I have built a train-wreck in my head from cheap wine and horrible sex”.The book that Brooks says started him writing came out of the American scene; The Human W ...

On the 1st of June, an article appeared on the website Gawker with the intriguing headline ‘The Underground Website Where You Can Buy Any Drug Imaginable’. It is an interesting article, and yes, you still can buy a whole host of illegal products from the site . However, the article’s significance to the world lay not in its exposition of this shady eBay knockoff, but in its explanation of one of the underlying anonymising technologies being employed: Bitcoins. What are Bitcoins? An explanation is offered in this video by its proponents: In other words, Bitcoins are a digital currency, virtual tokens. They were dreamt up in December 2009 by a cryptographer under the probable pseudonym ‘Satoshi Nakamoto’ who has now vanished from the scene. Put simply, their value – like the U.S Dollar following its exit from the gold standard – is not ‘backed up’ by any tangible assets, but is instead derived from ‘faith’. By faith, I mean a collective belief that Bitcoins ...

AQA recently announced a scheme to rank all A-level students according to which school they attend, aimed at exposing potential in students from underachieving schools. Or, to put it another way, AQA have today announced a scheme to penalise students from independent schools. Under the system, students from low-performing comprehensives in disadvantaged areas would be entitled to A-level ‘bonus points’ for their school’s ranking, whereas a student from a top performing independent with no students on free school meals would be penalised for the average success of their school. In theory, the scheme sounds promising; a leveling of potential regardless of achievement. In practice attributing bonus points for underperforming schools and penalty points for top ones is fraught with danger. As Professor Alan Smithers from the University of Buckingham has stated, “There must be concerns about the ranking the candidates are awarded. The possibility for errors are enormous.” The ...

“Nobody knows all the wounds of our national tragedy... This trouble will drive us mad” These words of Gomidas in his final moments of lucidity are chillingly prophetic. Perhaps the original tortured artist, his pithy and disarmingly titled songs, such as I Cannot Dance and Oh, What a Delight echo the wry melancholy of The Smiths more than a peasant folk tradition of almost a century earlier. Yet both irony and incongruity were so poignant in the life and works of this Armenian priest and musician - or, to give him his lofty official title, ‘doctor of musicology’.He wrenched the remnants of Armenian peasant culture into the 20th century, painstakingly putting rural folk songs he came across to manuscript paper. His aim was to resurrect the cultural heritage of his homeland. Yet this was not a self-promoting scheme reminiscent of patronising narodniks attempting to incite passion in indifferent Russian serfs. It was an entirely selfless, and ultimately masochistic, task, ...

Indians are a very religious lot. I should know that, as I am one of them. Religion is an integral part of everyday life and influences all the decisions that you make, from your days in the cradle to the time you enter the grave. Charity is an important part of that religious identity and plays a significant role in helping those living below the poverty line. For example, many temples, mosques and gurudwaras offer free food to all that come to their doorstep. I once believed that charity from religious institutions was a more efficient way to help the economically vulnerable than government-run schemes where most of the money was lost to corruption. But recent events in relation to the huge treasure trove found at Sree Padmanabhaswamy temple (Kerala) have presented me with a dilemma. The Sree Padmanabhaswamy temple, founded in the 6th century A.D., has long been a place of worship for the followers of Lord Vishnu. The administration of the temple was taken over by the local king o ...

Who put Kelvin Mackenzie on Newsnight to discuss the London riots? Amidst the voices trying to discuss the potential causes of the riots in a reasoned manner, his voice rung out over all others as he blamed the riots upon ‘vile people’ and ‘scumbags’, and that we should not try and understand the mentality behind the riots but turn to the law courts to give them ‘sentences that will make them quiver’. This appears to be a common argument; label the perpetrators of the riots as mindless thugs, and that by putting them in jail and threatening to close BBM services, the problem will disappear. This was violence with no political cause, destroying because it was possible and pandering to simple greed Unfortunately, the answer is not as simple as it appears. Yes, those who looted and burned shops and homes in their local communities are guilty of senseless violence without a cause, showing blatant disregard for their neighbours and others. Yes, on one level this can be reduced ...

The things everyone always mentions about Raymond Tallis are these: that he is ludicrously, frighteningly clever, that he is one of the great living polymaths, that Kirsty Young named him as her favourite ever castaway on Desert Island Discs , that even while he was Professor of Geriatric Medicine at Manchester (a position he held for 20 years) and a consultant he would get up at five o’clock to write influential works of philosophy before spending twelve hours at the hospital, that he has written over 20 books on a breathtaking range of subjects, and that he is a lovely chap. The last point is interesting because, on the page, Tallis is something of a pugilist. Back in the early 1990s, his articulate fury at the ‘institutionalised fraud’ of postmodern theory provoked a great deal of abuse in return. More recently, he has opposed the view that humans are nothing more than sophisticated animals. The title of his new book is vintage Tallis – four jabs on the cover alone! It’s ...

No. No, I think we can safely say that it isn't. Sorry. But that got your attention, didn't it? And now that I've got it, let me play with it a while. Because - be honest - a small part of you really wants the headline to be true. It's the same part of you that watches natural disasters and urges the death toll higher. The part that wants to see News International dismantled, pulverised and incinerated, right down to the last cardboard packet of paperclips. The part that catches sight of Oedipus rushing distraught to the scene of his wife-mother's suicide and clamours DO IT DO IT DO IT doitdoitdoitdoit WWHEEEYY!!! "All the amazing and horrifying things that make us human: firing rockets at the moon, eating 68 hot dogs in 10 minutes, and hacking into the answerphones of war widows" Now for the controversial bit: this ugly little smear in your psychological makeup is neither unnatural nor ignoble. In fact, it's essential. The do-it do-it do-it complex (DDDC) - not simple Schad ...

What a week for A. C. Grayling. Since his announcement that he will be opening a New College of the Humanities, he has been subject to attack from students, media, and fellow academics alike; rallied against on Facebook and smoke-bombed out of Foyles. In an interview with Shiv Malik for The Guardian , he commented; “[This issue] has become this sort of lightning conductor for the whole dissatisfaction that everybody feels about what’s happening in higher education ... which is really bad, so they pick on something to have a real go at.” But is it simply a case of jumping on the bandwagon of persecution, or is there a more reasoned argument for the amount of vitriol aimed at Grayling for his decision? In truth it has exposed an important, underlying issue that has been caused by the current government’s policy on higher education; as Grayling noted in an interview with The Times , “The Government’s higher education policy is in such a disarray that I don’t think they ...