Book Review: There Is No Antimemetics Division


Book cover featuring an ominous black tower dominating the landscape.

I can't remember the last book which gave me literal nightmares. After reading the first few chapters of the book, I fell into an uneasy sleep - troubled with dreams about its impossibility. "Antimemetics" is one of those frighteningly original sci-fi ideas. Sure, the secret-agency-defends-the-world trope has been played to death, but there is something […]

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The games that shape our language


A get out of jail free card from the Monopoly boardgame.

One of the joys of working with a diverse set of people from all around the world, is that English idioms are a constant source of bemusements. "It's raining cats and dogs" is quickly mapped to the more poetic "Es gießt Schusterjungs". Recently, I mentioned how our team had a "get-out-of-jail-free card". Whereupon a person […]

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The Levellers, The Diggers, The Hackers, and The Builders


Illustration of English Rebel Songs. Peasants rising up.

My schooling of English history covered the 1066 invasion, then jumped to the Tudors, a smattering of the industrial revolution, a bit of the First World War, then a heavy focus on the Second World War whereupon, it seemed, history stopped. As far as I can recall, we learned nothing about the English Dissenters - […]

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