Packed full of incident and insight, No Cunning Plan is a funny, self-deprecating and always entertaining memoir by Sir Tony Robinson. Sir Tony Robinson is a much-loved actor, presenter and author with a stellar career lasting over fifty years. In this autobiography he reveals how the boy from South Woodford went from child stardom in the first stage production of Oliver!, a pint-sized pickpocket desperately bleaching his incipient moustache, to comedy icon Baldrick, the loyal servant and turnip aficionado in Blackadder. It wasn't all plain sailing though. Along the way he was bullied by Steve Marriott, failed to impress Liza Minnelli and was pushed into a stinking London dock by John Wayne. He also entertained us with Maid Marion and Her Merry Men (which he wrote and starred in) and coped manfully when locked naked outside a theatre in Lincoln during the live tour of comedy series Who Dares Wins. He presented Time Team for twenty years, watching countless gardens ruthlessly dug up in the name of archaeology, and risked life and limb filming The Worst Jobs in History.

Uncertainty is interwoven into human existence. It is a powerful incentive in the search for knowledge and an inherent component of scientific research. We have developed many ways of coping with uncertainty. We make promises, manage risks and make predictions to try to clear the mists and predict ahead. But the future is inherently uncertain - and the mist that shrouds our path an inherent part of our journey. The burning question is whether our societies can face up to uncertainty, learn to embrace it and whether we can open up to a constantly evolving future. In this new book, Helga Nowotny shows how research can thrive at the cusp of uncertainty. Science, she argues, can eventually transform uncertainty into certainty, but into certainty which remains always provisional. Uncertainty is never completely static. It is constantly evolving. It encompasses geological time scales and, at the level of human experience, split-second changes as cells divide. Life and death decisions are taken in the blink of the eye, while human interactions with the natural environment may reveal their impact over millennia. Uncertainty is cunning. It appears at unexpected moments, it shuns the straight line, takes the oblique route and sometimes the unexpected short-cut. As we acknowledge the cunning of uncertainty, its threats retreat. We accept that any scientific inquiry must produce results that are provisional and uncertain. This message is vital for politicians and policy-makers: do not be tempted by small, short-term, controllable gains to the exclusion of uncertain, high-gain opportunities. Wide-ranging in its use of examples and enriched by the author’s experience as President of the European Research Council, one of the world’s leading funding organisations for fundamental research. The Cunning of Uncertainty is a must-read for students and scholars of all disciplines, politicians, policy-makers and anyone concerned with the fundamental role of knowledge and science in our societies today.

The bestselling book—more than 1.5 million copies sold—for every boy from eight to eighty, covering essential boyhood skills such as building tree houses*, learning how to fish, finding true north, and even answering the age old question of what the big deal with girls is—now a Prime Original Series created by Bryan Cranston (Breaking Bad) and Greg Mottola (Superbad). In this digital age, there is still a place for knots, skimming stones and stories of incredible courage. This book recaptures Sunday afternoons, stimulates curiosity, and makes for great father-son activities. The brothers Conn and Hal have put together a wonderful collection of all things that make being young or young at heart fun—building go-carts and electromagnets, identifying insects and spiders, and flying the world's best paper airplanes. Skills covered include: The Greatest Paper Airplane in the World The Seven Wonders of the Ancient World The Five Knots Every Boy Should Know Stickball Slingshots Fossils Building a Treehouse* Making a Bow and Arrow Fishing (revised with US Fish) Timers and Tripwires Baseball's "Most Valuable Players" Famous Battles-Including Lexington and Concord, The Alamo, and Gettysburg Spies-Codes and Ciphers Making a Go-Cart Navajo Code Talkers' Dictionary Girls Cloud Formations The States of the U.S. Mountains of the U.S. Navigation The Declaration of Independence Skimming Stones Making a Periscope The Ten Commandments Common US Trees Timeline of American History *For more information on building treehouses, visit www.treehouse-books.com and www.stilesdesigns.com or see “Treehouses You Can Actually Build” by David Stiles.

If you love the danger and sword-fighting of MERLIN, you'll like this! In a discontent kingdom, civil war is brewing. To unify the divided people, Conner, a nobleman of the court, devises a cunning plan to find an impersonator of the king's long-lost son and install him as a puppet prince. Four orphans are recruited to compete for the role, including a defiant boy named Sage. Sage knows that Conner's motives are more than questionable, yet his life balances on a sword's point - he must be chosen to play the prince or he will certainly be killed. As Sage's journey continues, layer upon layer of treachery and deceit unfold, until finally a truth is revealed that proves more dangerous than all of the lies put together.

Tony Robinson takes you on a headlong gallop through time, pointing out all the most important, funny, strange, amazing, entertaining, smelly and disgusting bits about the Egyptians! It's history, but not as we know it! Find out everything you ever needed to know in this brilliant, action-packed, fact-filled book including: - Why the gods looked so strange - Why tomb raiding is a bad idea - Why they loved cats, and - How to make a mummy in eight easy steps. This enhanced edition of the Weird World of Wonders contains audio narration from Tony Robinson, exclusive videos and bonus jokes and facts.

Without careful ongoing planning, the software development process can fall apart. Extreme Programming (XP) is a new programming discipline, or methodology, that is geared toward the way that the vast majority of software development projects are handled -- in small teams. In this new book, noted software engineers Kent Beck and Martin Fowler show the reader how to properly plan a software development project with XP in mind. The authors lay out a proven strategy that forces the reader to plan as their software project unfolds, and therefore avoid many of the nasty problems that can potentially spring up along the way.

Foxy DuBois is on a mission to get rich quick. Only one thing stands in her way - Alphonso the Alligator! Can Foxy's hair-brained schemes make enough money to keep Alphonso fed? Or will Foxy DuBois find herself on the menu? An hilarious new series for young readers from an award-winning author-illustrator team. Alex's first fiction series - Claude - was selected for the Richard and Judy Children's Book Club and the Waterstone's Children's Book Prize, and he is the World Book Day Illustrator 2014. Caryl has been shortlisted for the Red House Award and won many awards, including the Stockport Award.