Ian-PWL (whoever he is) says this blog is wonderful!

The secret's out: how to make any blog appear to be one of the most popular on the Internet, even if it only averages half-a-dozen visits a day (assuming there's no visitor counter like the one on the right).
Just after each posting, leave a comment underneath saying how brilliant it is. Something along the lines of “Fantastic: particularly the headlines with puns in them!”, or possibly "A must read - absolutely fascinating. 5 Stars!!" will do. Then go comment on every other blog you can find and write that they are boring, and perhaps written by morons/idiots/lunatics/etc.

This, according to a BBC news report (http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk/8641515.stm), is approximately the strategy employed by the historian Orlando Figes (a professor at London's Birkbeck College and the author of many books on Russian history) to boost his ratings. Apparently he's been leaving comments like "hard to follow" and "awful" under the Amazon entries of the printed works of rivals, and oozing praise about his own efforts. Unfortunately, there were Baldrickesque flaws in his cunning plan, as not only did he use the ill-disguised pseudonym “orlando-birkbeck”, Rachel Polonsky - one of the authors rubbished by Figes - discovered that the reviewer shared the same home address as the good professor. Oops!

Figes said he was "ashamed" of his behaviour and did not entirely understand why he acted as he did, adding that "it was stupid".
No arguments here!

There's no substitute for experience

Less than 5 weeks left to Colin Beard's latest Experiential Learning Day (there's been 19 of these days over the last four years, and this one at Leicester college is almost full), so if you're reading this and want to know what a combination lock made from drinking cups is all about, download a programme from http://www.playingwithlearning.com/subpages/images/Leicester_Prog.gif

A-pope-collarish Now (or Never)

If you happened to pick up today's Sunday Times, you could easily develop an exciting new opinion of Richard Dawkins, author, television presenter and formerly Charles Simonyi Professor for the Public Understanding of Science at Oxford University.

A headline in the paper declares "Richard Dawkins: I will arrest Pope Benedict XVI", which suggested to my overly-active Sunday morning imagination that when the Pontiff arrives in September, the good Professor intends do his best Bond-gone-mad impression and personally attack the Papal Plane, kick in the door, rough up a few Swiss Guards, present an arrest warrant, slap on a pair of handcuffs and then drag Benedict XVI kicking and screaming to the authorities to face charges for his alleged role in covering up child abuse by errant Catholic priests around the world.

An amusing image, but it didn't take much research to discover that the headline was, to say the least, misleading. Dawkin's own website points out that the headline did a disservice to both himself and the Times journalist responsible for the article, and unless someone decides to make the movie (& if they do, who owns the rights?) that image of Dawkins the action hero will have to remain nothing but a diverting fantasy since the rather less funny truth is only that Pr Dawkins and Christopher Hitchens have been exploring the possibility of mounting a legal challenge to the Papal Visit.

Thanks to Marc Horne, the Sunday Times reporter, for not only providing a topical addition to Tuesday's Critical Thinking workshop, but also inspiring the Photoshopping which has produced an image for the summing up session.