The Contrary Thoughts Blog
Recently, my glasses were knocked off my face, and when I put them back on, I could immediately tell that something was wrong. Somehow they’d bent so that they no longer sat comfortably on my ears and nose. Luckily, I’d been in this situation before and knew that I could Read more…
I wasn’t a particularly rebellious kid. In fact, my teenage rebellion mostly consisted of responding to lots of my Mum’s questions with a grunted “I’unno”[1]Saying “I don’t know” was clearly too much effort for me then, so I mushed it all together into something that was less of a word, Read more…
I’m experimenting with posting different things, to try to decide what to focus on. This is a scene (or maybe a fraction of a scene) from a much longer story that I’ve got planned. I hope you enjoy it, and find it intriguing – let me know in the comments! Read more…
As I did for March, I’d like to share some ideas that I had over the past month that I doubt I’ll ever do anything with. Please feel free to take them and use them – just attribute me if you do! The Turing Test This story idea came from Read more…
I am not a politician. There’s lots of reasons for this, but one of them is that that I have a tendency to just believe the last thing that I heard[1]This is apparently a common memory bias known as the “availability bias”. I’m more likely to flip flop on particular Read more…
It’s a common refrain in books that I’ve read about creativity that there’s no shortage of good ideas, and that the ideas are nothing without the execution. Another thing that I’ve read is that the more creative ideas that you come up with, the more you start to have. So Read more…
One nice thing about keeping a blog (or, at least trying to) is that every so often something that you’ve written, or in this case, drafted, becomes relevant again. I’m currently being inspired by the fact that last month (sadly too long ago for the show to still be available), Read more…
When I was little, I always used to look forwards to the last day of school. Not just because it meant that the holidays were close, but because it meant we were allowed to bring in games. One year I brought in the game KerPlunk, a game about carefully removing Read more…
Early in December, my science comedy group, The Variables, ran our first ever online gig.. Although I used to run a science talk show on YouTube, this is the first time that I’ve ever done a live comedy show online, and I thought it might be useful if I shared Read more…
For starters, the kind of person who immediately wants to follow up the question “Who am I?” with lyrics from Les Miserables. I really enjoy singing, even though I’m not very good at it (this isn’t digging for compliments, I have too many friends who are better singers than I). Read more…
