I don't think switching to agriculture was a choice made by humans. It was more that human societies which adopted agriculture outcompeted those which did not. The individual humans in those soc… (View Post)

HYUFD's narrative seems to be that it was largely those areas whuch remained Tory in tge 70s and early 80s whuch retained grammar schools, and that by and large these were wealthier areas. I don… (View Post)

Today I have fulfilled a long-held wish and seen a murmuration of starlings. I hadn't even gone looking for one. We spent the last day of (my) Christmas break in Blackpool; first the zoo, then t… (View Post)

Yes, I sympathise with kids of today, for whom underage drinking appears to have been made prohibitively difficult. And I agree there seems a lot less casual violence nowadays. This may just be a pro… (View Post)

I remember visiting the communism museum in Prague, and being quite taken aback by their unequivocal attitude to communism (i.e. that it was bad). Made me wonder why we're so reluctant to be sim… (View Post)