One of the pleasures of working at the Middlesex and then UCL has been their locations in central London. Maybe this has even fuelled my career via the sheer number and variety of seductive cafes and bars available as unofficial workplaces. The Middlesex nestled on the edge of Fitzrovia, just north of Soho, while Bloomsbury,… Read More »
I have over time reached the conclusion that as a teacher I communicate best with undergraduates, and that as a writer I communicate best with academic colleagues. I rarely teach now, but I have continued to write a decade or more into retirement. Recently a colleague has quite rightly raised the issue of why we… Read More »
There are times when it is right for people to be angry and to express warranted anger in collective action. Even as Parisians take to the streets of Paris to protest Macron’s attempts to further penalise them, the citizens of Britain remain within their home, quiescent if not emotionally or terminally acquiescent. In this unapologetically… Read More »
I have repeatedly called for academics interested in the social determinants of disease, and most particularly sociologists, to go beyond: (1) merely re-affirming the existence of health inequalities; (2) emphasising the salience of structural factors like class, gender and race; and (3) commending social and health policy reform that is simply not going to happen… Read More »
The Laburnum If only the small, homely laburnum tree Was as poisonous to squirrels as it is to me, Then the dunnocks and tits that come to feed Could sway in peace to peck at their seed. As it is, squirrels, plump and far-too-smart, Climb and plunder the spoils: they often start By… Read More »
Rishi Sunak is not all he appears to be and there is certainly a chasm between his rhetoric of just and compassionate concern and his actions. This is another contribution to my ‘greedy bastards’ series. First a reminder: what as a sociologist I’m interested in is the structural relations – notably of class and state… Read More »
From 2006 my office settled in Mortimer Market on the ‘other side’ of Tottenham Court Road. I was now closer to UCL in Gower Street in more than a geographical sense. As well as constantly retracing the long familiar route to Dillons/Waterstones I found I was making more extended use of UCL’s classrooms and facilities.… Read More »
On 31 December 2019 I was apparently driving at 37 mph in a 30 mph area in Cambridge, or so a police camera claimed. I didn’t contest this when I received a communication from the police. Instead I paid the requisite fine of £100 by telephone within the prescribed timetable (actually on 27 February 2020).… Read More »
The temptation to dismiss people who act against their own interests as ‘stupid’ should be resisted. How often did we hear that working-class ‘northerners’ who voted Brexit, or for an Old Etonian charlatan as PM, were ‘beyond stupid’ and deserved their inevitable punishment? Of course there exists a long history of sociologists trying to explain… Read More »
Open Letter to Kier Starmer Dear Kier Starmer, I am writing to inform you that I am resigning my Labour Party membership and to explain why. It is a story with several parts, but I will be brief. Like many others – tens of thousands in fact – I re-joined the Party on the election… Read More »