Mind & body.

From the start, Western governments were keen to accept the Soviet account of the causes and consequences of the accident, and to agree that the Soviets had done their best in the face of it. Blame was not politic. Read more...

Here's a timeline list of some of the most authoritative accounts of the effects of the Chernobyl accident. If you'd rather something cripser, try the World Nuclear Association's sharp and well-referenced account.  Read more...

Some people promote and millions believe the idea of a very high number for Chernobyl's cancer death toll. (See the 100,000 figure promoted by some Greens, and that's almost moderate.) Some others also adduce huge and horrible birth defects and other health effects.  Assessing the cancer toll, and the wider health effects, is complicated....... Read more...

This was a note written by Paul Seaman (www.paulseaman.com) as a July 2006  account by the BBC's leading science programme of the different ways of thinking about and accounting for the death-doll from cancer caused by radiation. It helps show why different experts come to very different predictions of the scale of, for instance, the Chernobyl disaster. Trouble is (for those who'd like a simple life) it debunks "LNT" which is the underpinning theory of the low estimates of people like the Chernobyl Forum, and does so by arguing that these are way too high. Read more...

Andrew Marr seems so obviously nice and clever that it seems odd to find some of what he says very irritating. Last Sunday, for instance, he announced on his BBC1 Sunday show that he thought that there ought to be a crackdown on dodgy facial hair.... Where would would this end? Read more...

Forty years on and Erich Segal's "Love Story" makes a surprisingly spikey and yet delicious show in Chichester Festival Theatre's Minerva Theatre. Read more...

It's not often a good ploy to whinge, and this isn't exactly a moan. Well, only a bit of one. I want to stand up for my Life On a Modern Planet (1995) and Rich Is Beautiful (2005) as works of "rational optimism". Read more...

For long stretches of I Am Love, I was bowled over in much the way I imagine the movie-makers intended. It had risible patches which didn't quite shake the wheels off the wagon. Read more...

There is an enormous amount to be said for Africa. Stoicism and good humour would be right up there as attributes which abound. Famously, Nigerians have all that in spades. Last night's BBC film concentrated on a Lagos rubbish dump and its scavengers. Read more...

Did you watch the Boat Race coverage? I was struck by the way Dan Snow (who rowed in several) went on and on about how winning it was lovely but losing it marked you for life. I forget the details, but it all left a powerful impression of a generation of athletes for whom winning is a graceless necessity whilst losing is a psychological catastrophe. This is bizarre and applies to other butch moderns. Read more...