Of my own free will, I've been reading Daniel Dennet's Freedom Evolves.

The later chapters of Dennet's book were more convincing than the first chapters, but the book was interesting all the way through. Dennet tried to convince me that even in a deterministic universe, things can be avoided, and …

I've emailed Tesco about re-using jars as glasses:

Hello,

In France, jars of chocolate spread, mustard etc, are often designed so that you can re-use them as drinking-glasses when the contents are used up.

This seems like a good idea, so I was wondering why we don't take this approach …

I don't really know about acting, and I don't know the names of actors, but Heath Ledger as The Joker was brilliant.

This was a morally complex batman film. I saw it as an allegory of the 'war on terror' / war in Iraq, with The Joker as Osama Bin Laden …

Listening to Switch, I heard Nick 'Grimmy' Grimshaw, mention Bebo loads of times, without mentioning any other social networking site. It seems like Radio 1 have done a deal with Bebo; Grim Dog is promoting links to Bebo on the R1 site.

In France, I played Boggle with some [really]{style="font-style: italic;"} brainy people. They used an extra-large 5x5 version of Boggle, and only words of 6 letters or longer counted! Also, they don't allow adding an 's' to make a plural. (As a concession to me they allowed 5-letter words …

Hi Tony, I used to use Dolimo jars as beer glass in Australia as they didn't have pint size glasses over there and think you could be on to something. I hope you can come punting next Saturday (23 Aug)... 12 noon, Cherwell Boathouse!

One of the things about there being different countries / cultures is that it helps to reveal those things that are necessarily so, and those that are down to tradition or culture.

In France, jars can be used as glasses once the contents have been used up. This saves money, and …

"super-popular" <- enjoy it while you can!

Claire read the previous post on getting my phone drenched and told me this top tip:

...stick your mobile in a bag with rice (uncooked) apparently the rice will absorb the water!!!

I didn't have to try it, as the phone suddenly started working all by itself. There were loads …

It's been raining heavily all day, and probably much of the previous night. This afternoon I walked in the rain to Saint Barthelemy for my customary [presion]{style="font-style: italic;"}, and then back towards Chamblard. Now, the problem is that to get home from Chamblard I had to cross the …