SomeBeans

“ The Measure of All Things “ by Ken Alder tells the story of Pierre Méchain and Jean Baptiste Joseph Delambre ’s efforts to survey the lin...

This blog post is my review and notes on “ The Ascent of Money: A Financial History of the World ” by Niall Ferguson. It’s a thematic run th...

J.B.S. Haldane, when asked “What has the study of biology taught you about the Creator, Dr. Haldane?”, he replied: “I’m not sure, but He se...

My next book review is on Doomsday Men: The Real Dr Strangelove and the Dream of the Superweapon by P.D. Smith . I arrived at this book via ...

This week I have journeyed into the heart of darkness. Actually it was my company's IT outsourcing system. I work for a very big compa...

Saddam Hussein helped me to understand the role of the UN and the nation state when he gassed the inhabitants of the Iraqi town of Helabja ...

This post is in part a memory aid but it may be interesting to other amateur photographers, and organisational obsessives. My scheme for ho...

I’ve been on a bit of a reading spree: next up is “ For all the tea in China ” by Sarah Rose. This is the story of Robert Fortune and his tr...

This post can be read in full here:  http://www.ianhopkinson.org.uk/2011/02/book-review-the-immortal-life-of-henrietta-lacks/ The Immortal...

A view up the Saalbach-Hinterglemm valley, Hinterglemm is in the distance Mrs SomeBeans and I have been skiing again, staying in Hintergl...

Reading the biography of Isambard Kingdom Brunel got me interested in engineers; Rolt, the author of the Brunel biography, mentioned the bi...

This blog post seeks to answer the question: what economic growth rate does the UK need to sustain in order to reduce the deficit to zero? ...

This blog post attempts to answer the economic question: What country is the United Kingdom like economically? The question arises from disc...

A little bit of politics for this book review: “ The Third Man: Life at the heart of New Labour ” by Peter Mandelson. It’s been a while sinc...