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I remember reading an essay - I think it was by Paul Feyerabend - that argued against holding science in a higher esteem that other methods of reasoning. I was angry with the article at the time. To me, a recent science graduate, it was as if he was kicking the world I knew from under my feet. He seemed to argue that science isn't important. It's taken me a couple of years to get, but I think I understand a bit what he was on about. I vaguely remember the phrase scientism  being bandied about in the article. As I remember, scientism is essentially the belief that science holds all of the answers. Thinking about it now, Mr Feyerabend was not arguing against science but against scientism. And this is something I think I understand now. Cryptic research notes A project at work There's an ongoing project at work with the goal of making our website easier for the people who use it to find the information they are looking for. Technically this is a really easy projec...

I think it's about time to get some more posts on this blog. There's this great subreddit. /r/writingprompts does exactly what it says on the tin, someone posts a theme and others write a short story based on the theme. I have decided that I will write something from this as often as possible (once a week to begin with). So without further ado.... The secret to immortality is found! It's not worth it.   I think back to my own birth. Waking up in a warm tank – an adolescent body, young and strong and fit. I still remembered my previous lives and I was, of course, much more mature (about two centuries more mature) than most other teenagers.  I remember the hunt as I searched the city for my old self, following a blip, using satellites to find myself. I remember the old, crumbling apartment – similar to the one I now find myself in – where my old self had gone to... What? To die or to hide? It doesn't matter any more, he died. I shot him.  I felt disgust and ...

A spare corner room. One bed and en-suite bathroom. Previous owners. Disinfectant. Smells. Those of urine and hand gel. Squeaky, lino floor. A beeping next door. People coming to and fro, But not this room here. This room eats people. It swallows them whole, I've heard. And spits out fam'ly. Other rooms. More light. People go, able to fight. Happier places. Here's just an ending. A locked door hides suffering. Others, ignorant.

A greed agreed. It's what I want, who cares what I need? Stand in my place at the shop door, and I'll stomp your face on the shop floor. Braced against cold and credit since midnight, wondering who of these others I will have to fight.  No one will look down on me, with my brand new, 50 inch TV.

There are times when it flows. Carving curves into the tarmac track, mirroring the trails of planes as they streak the sky. Banking left through Battersea Park. Emptied of the day-trippers, the joggers, the dogs and filled with the breeze, the quiet, the dark. Street lamps shape the runway ahead. Inviting and free and mine for a while. I switch up gears and I fly.

The Kiss&Tell podcast ( Episode 1 , Episode 2 , Episode 3 , Episode 4 ) was a lot of fun to make! And now I want to set up another fun podcast. This time I want others to help make it. In fact, they wouldn't even be helping me  make it – they would be planning, recording and producing their very own podcast themselves. Get ready to record the world! "What is this grand scheme of yours, Andy?" I hear you asking. A themed, monthly series of podcasts! The plan is to set up a blog that allows a group to post their productions based on the theme from that month. This is a lot like the BBC's ' We set the theme, you take the pictures '. Basically, we will pick some topics for podcasts – with a different topic each month. Whoever wants to do a podcast on that subject can then do what ever they want. Literally, what ever they want . It could be a radio drama, a documentary, a comedy, some vox pops, an interview, a monologue, a poem, a pane...

See this post and more on my chondrosarcoma blog -  http://ihavechondrosarcoma.blogspot.co.uk/   I was back in that familiar hallway. Vintage posters advertising 'Imperial Airways' flights to the colonies lining the otherwise bare, beige walls. Macmillan brochures adorning seat-side tables. The toilet to be used "only by those who have taken radioisotope". I have been here many times before, I'm used to the procedure. In about 10 minutes, I'll be called in and will lie down on a table that will slide into a big, doughnut-shaped thing. I will be told to lie perfectly still while water molecules in my body are aligned with and against a magnetic field in order to image my hip and femur. It's nothing dramatic and nothing to worry about. Mainly it's really boring. I hear another patient – the one wheeled in on a chair and wearing a hospital gown – talking to their anaesthetist. I know you shouldn't listen in to what other patients say, bu...