After a period when it looked like scammers had got bored with the 419, here it is back in abundance. We have received five or six of these in the course of a couple of weeks, after months of being free of them.

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Interestingly, the classic 419 scam does not appear to have had its day yet. This fine example dropped into the inbox a few days ago.

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One of those gloomy newspapers, the ones that always seem to think that the end of the world is nigh, the ones you don’t read if you have a glass-half-full sort of outlook, reckons that Bonfire Night is on its last legs.

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A thought-provoking experience on Wednesday when, for work purposes, I am required to attend a motorsports event. Without going into too much detail, it’s not a race, but a sponsors’ event, even though it does involve taking cars out on track. However, even though there’s no racing happening, everyone present has so much invested in the occasion that it’s almost painful.

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I wouldn’t blame you if you were put off by the title of this post. After all, it’s a pretty moot point which people will continue to argue over, disagree about and use as a subject for television documentaries probably for decades to come. And whenever these discussions kick off, Orson Welles’ masterpiece Citizen Kane always gets mentioned, much to the annoyance of those people who don’t rate it very highly.

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Last weekend the British Humanist Association held one of its regular conferences at Conway Hall in Red Lion Square, London. The topic was Evolutionary theory: is this all there is? and, as usual with these events, there was a distinguished list of academics on hand to discuss questions relating to biology, psychology and philosophy. Here’s my (inevitably subjective) summary of what went on and what we got out of attending.

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