One aspect of work I most enjoyed was teaching statistical thinking to scientists and medics. I used the analogy of Plato's Cave - a lot! - as a way of helping colleagues understand that the data collected in experiments and clinical trials weren't the truth about a drug (or whatever), but, rather, its reflection on the walls of the cave in which we were bound. Prisoners in the epistemological cave, never able to turn our heads and gaze directly upon the unblemished true forms we spent our lives investigating. That's (almost) a depressing though, but - ta-da! - thanks to Bayes' theorem, we can use those imperfect data, and our knowledge [whatever that means - insert David Hume here], to make valid statements about the true forms. That's quite a feat of human reasoning, and is one of my favourite "facts" about our human condition that makes me remain optimistic for our future. There's a slide I made below to show the concept, from some talk yonks ago. The problem of the inductive logic ("How can these observations let us know that which we want to know?") might not have a perfect solution in the universe we inhabit, but that we have *a* solution that works is quite encouraging. (There is another, competing solution to the problem, but it doesn't work at all, even on its own terms, and need not trouble us here.) Anyway this morning a friend texted me, to let me know that someone who spent time in my department is now a consultant, and is advertising his services using that Plato's Cave metaphor. I didn't know how I felt about this. Obviously I didn't copywrite a metaphor I came up with for work, and obviously Plato had the idea first - I just nicked it and refashioned it for statistical inference. On reflection though, it's wonderful - life-affirming - to realise that at least one of my ideas has achieved a resonance that's still audible, even as the incoming tide washes the footprints of my career clean from the beach. The more I think about it, the more chuffed I feel. "Retiring" is a verb I loathe, because it sounds as though one is withdrawing from the world, and I've gone out of my way not to use it to describe the life that Keith and I lead, not even in my head. And yet, of course, withdraw we all do, sooner or later. I doubt many of the people with whom I worked for decades could recall my name by now, so this flash from the past has made me feel just a little more solid.

Everyone of a certain age will remember watching Mavis Nicholson in the afternoons I should think (I think I can still sing the jingle theme tune.) Finlay is right - she was a very talented interviewer, an art that seems to have vanished. Also, while her programmes were entertaining, they were also quite serious. Joke countries don't do "serious" though, do they? They put the party's selected mannequin on "Gogglebox" for the lolz.

We aren't governed by anyone who loves Britain. Quite the reverse.

Gareth @OldRoberts953 writes such great stuff on so many topics: don't miss his takedown of Ian Dunt; it is sublime - someone of whom I'm only vaguely aware, as a sort of everpresent background chuntering noise. We should have grabbed the pen from these moronic grifters in 2016. We are living through our failure to do so. theageofstupid.substack.com/…

Every institution, every single one, now seems to be controlled by an enemy of the West. I think the least that should be asked is that the individuals who are engaged in this frenzy of destruction be named. Who desecrated the Kelvingrove in this way, and who appointed her?

How dare you, Daily Mail. How dare you.

I'm no fan of Apple and bitterly regret becoming locked into its ecosystem. But for a Saturday evening g&t, its "Mendelssohn essentials" playlist is pretty beautiful. (Except when the third movement of the violin concerto comes on, because then you want to hear the whole thing! Plus I always skip past the wedding march.) music.apple.com/gb/playlist/…

This is subjective but ... name three PERFECT movies. No argument. Not explanation. Here's mine. Night of the Demon The Cat and the Canary (the Bob Hope one) The Earth Dies Screaming I mean I could have put The Cook, The Thief, His Wife & Her Lover Elizabeth Cyrano de Bergerac Or Vertigo Dial M for Murder North by Northwest Each triple is my "favourite". But when it's Sunday afternoon, and it's raining outside, and there's a cup of tea and some cake on the go, it's one of the first three I'm most likely to put on!

I wrote a piece just after the referendum about the importance of grabbing the pen - the "narrative pen" - from the Remainers. Alas, we let them hold onto it. And so here we are, ten years later, with a pipsqueak nothing, who owes his entire existence to his gravy-train parents, attacking a patriot on the poll-tax funded BBC. I know it's not kind of me, but I despise this Kinnock even more strongly than I disliked his father when my 1992 vote helped prevent him from gaining power. No more Kinnocks: I think that's what I dared to dream in 2016. No more Kinnocks telling us how we should be British.

My X app looks funny, is it just me? I see a central feed, but not the sidebars.

I must admit - I mean, I don't *have* to admit, but I'm going to - we went to see Ian McKellen in "Player Kings", which was Henry IV parts 1 & 2, in the west end in summer 2024. We were excited to see a great actor - it was the day before his tumble - and I know I love Shakespeare. However. It turns out that the Shakespeare I love is the tragedies wot we dun at school: Macbeth, Julius Caesar, Hamlet. And I saw a dazzling genuine-lolz As You Like It in Glasgow in the 90s. Great character arcs, fast-moving stories. But. I'd never seen one of the history plays before and it bored me to tears. Even with the fabulous SIr Ian. It reminded me of Game of Thrones, which I hate ("Now my army moves from X, to Y, ha! ha!" "Ha! But I shall move my army from Y, to X! Ha! Ha!" [insert rubbish bit of gore for interest].) We were two couples and at the interval I confessed I was bored; Keith said he'd lost track; Jacquie admitted to falling asleep. So we left. I think Andrew Scott overdoes the hand-waving here. But I understand his pace - it does make it sound like someone thinking aloud, rather than an actor reciting a speech, even if he establishes that early and then overdoes it a bit. I find it, and him, compelling. And an early memory of mine is sadness at Ian Charleson's death, so I will watch Elsinore. But I understand what Christopher means.

This is so true, and is Part 928 of my ongoing "Life was better when we had a mechanical bent, rather than an electronic fetish" rant. Our car had to go in for an "update" last week - I do like our car, but it's the second time its electronics have required a trip to the garage for a software download. PS While I'm ranting, no-one should have a car licence without first passing a direct access bike test. I've believed this since I passed mine - second go - thirty-five years ago.

Little bit of lively Bach. I've left in the three false starts because that unwillingness of my fingers to repeat a pattern they've done a thousand times before is entirely typical! Plus a schmurshed chord jump toward the end. But I think I get more pleasure from playing this than anything else just now, and I think the music is perfect for a bright Autumn day.

This is utterly brilliant and I am begging Gareth to turn it into a novel!

This is quite amazing. Have a read at the reactions of some mathematicians. I hope someone is asking @BristOliver to write an article about this! One possible reason that maths is open for AI is that it's an entirely interior activity: it requires no infrastructure. I still wonder how AIs can tackle problems in biological sciences i.e. medicine. The reasoning about proteins and whatever takes place in the machine (or human mind), but then experimental work is necessary to test implications and shut down avenues - this feedback loop is how experimental science goes, of course, not saying anything new. But that loop would prevent similar rapid progress to that which has just been seen in Number Theory.