When I die and am laid in my grave and my soul ascends to the Pearly Gates and the Supreme Being peers at me over half-moon glasses and declares, “Well Stephen, it’s Judgement Day”, I will look him in the eye and reply: “Dear God, not again!” Because, as a scientist, my life seems to be a never-ending succession of judgement days. Lately it’s being getting ridiculous.

For three days last week I was at the EMBL in Heidelberg taking a fantastic course on data visualisation. As is often the way with scientific training, the course was intense: lectures and practicals from 9 in the morning till 10 at night. This particular course was perhaps unusual in being divided into three modules even though each student focused on just one of them.

Load. Aim. Fire!!!!! Grant application submitted. Who knows what will happen? If you feel moved to comment, please do so randomly. I’m all out of evidence and logic.

It seems somehow to have always been there. I cannot remember when it first came to my attention but I have long been aware of it as a landmark or rather a landscape in the background of my mind. Jacob Bronowski’s documentary series, The Ascent of Man , was first broadcast on BBC2 in 1973.

I wanted to write something in time for World Homeopathy Awareness Week since homeopathy is such an amazing phenomenon. But though the promotional week is now over, I’m sure you can remember it. You will have memories of some of the things that were written and said. Memories are so important for human beings. They enrich the present and allow us to navigate from the past into the future.

You know that feeling? That feeling you get? That feeling you get when you and your mate are climbing in the Andes and the weather closes in and before you know it you’ve slipped off an icy ledge and suffered a horrific impact fracture of the femur.

I am pleased to be able to announce that, having taken up jogging at the turn of the year, I can now run faster than a rocket. Well, strictly speaking, I can now run faster that the Rocket–or rather a very fine replica thereof–which I overtook yesterday lunchtime in Kensington Gardens. This was the view as I whizzed past: Stephen passes Stephenson . Anyone wishing to take a ride in the train has until the 18th April.

Today it is my signal honour to have a guest post on @JackofKent‘s most excellent blog. It examines the understanding of the nature of scientific evidence set out in the Court of Appeal’s recent ruling on the libel case brought by the British Chiropractic Association against science writer, Dr Simon Singh. In my opinion, the stance taken by the Court is pleasingly scientific .

I was in Court 4 at the Royal Courts of Justice at 9.30 this morning, the Court of the Lord Chief Justice. This one was a ‘real’ court room, all oak panel, wall-to-wall shelves of legal tomes and even a dock caged with cast-iron bars for the defendant (empty on this occasion). It was a brief affair. The buzz of conversation stopped abruptly with the words “Court Rise” and in came the Lord Chief Justice himself.

At the weekend the clocks went forward. Time was shifted and the days suddenly seem longer. I realised that my stargazing will be pushed later and later into the spring and summer evenings. Oh well, I’ll just have to sit up longer. Earlier today I travelled under dismal skies to North London to attend the funeral of a colleague, a man in his prime–not yet forty–for whom time has cruelly and suddenly stopped. His young family is devastated.

I am reading The Age of Wonder , Richard Holmes’ award-winning romp through the romantic era of science which lasted, roughly speaking, from the middle of the eighteenth century to the middle of the nineteenth.