'09 feelin' fine

Here at New Humanist we saw 2008 out with a bang with our sold out series of benefit shows (4-star reviews in the Evening Standard and Independent) and the complete 24-part series of Advent Podcasts which climaxed on Christmas Eve with Richard Dawkins. Our podcasts have now been downloaded more than 170,000 times which, considering that we only learned how to make them in June, is quite an achievement if we do say so ourselves. You can still hear find all the advent podcasts, from Stephen Fry to Richard Dawkins and including Dara O'Briain, Ben Goldacre, PZ Myers and Marcus Brigstocke here. Keep visiting for details of the events and podcasts we have planned for '09.

Meanwhile the Jan/Feb issue of New Humanist is out now. Selected highlights on this site later in the week, but to make sure you get it first and complete why not subscribe now?

Among the riches in the new issue is a provocative article from conservative polemicist (and non-believer) Theodore Dalrymple. You may remember Mr Dalrymple from such atheist-baiting articles as What the New Atheists Don’t See (which promoted this response from AC Grayling). You might not agree with his argument, we kind of hope you don't in fact, but he puts it with rare elegance and we are thrilled to have enticed him to join the debate. We'll publish the article on the site soon.

[The image above is Martin Rowson's illustration for Dalymple's article, an homage to the iconic du Maurier Punch cartoon from 1895]