Category: Uncategorized

Another wartime anniversary; Oradour

After the rightfully diplomatic D Day commemoration, another event to remember is the war crime at Oradour. If you are reading this today, June 10, it is exactly 70 years ago that German troops heading north to repel the landings took time out to gather up all the villagers of innocent little French village of… Continue reading Another wartime anniversary; Oradour

Warren Zevon; new readers start here

It can never do any harm to remember Warren Zevon once again. His wordplay was sublime in so many unexpected ways. It included such gems as the dark but deliciously assonantal recitative “a little old lady got mutilated late last night” (say it out loud) in Werewolves of London. Or the measured “And if California… Continue reading Warren Zevon; new readers start here

Weather; a lesson from history

UK readers will recall Somerset was an inland sea just this Spring and the Thames valley filled up like a blocked drain. That was unusual, so weird weather must signal that something is happening which has never happened before, right? So-called “extreme weather events” are the clinchers to convince those doubters of man-made global change.… Continue reading Weather; a lesson from history

A million pound lifestyle on a clerk’s wage

Meet Walter Watts. In 1844, aged just 27, he burst onto London society with no visible means of support, but with the trappings of a lottery winner. Inquisitive souls who wanted to know where the money came from were baffled as, one after another, they ruled out gambling, an inheritance or the City. However, if… Continue reading A million pound lifestyle on a clerk’s wage

When bankers saw risk as well as reward

When he was a student at Harvard, Bank of England governor Mark Carney played back-up goalie in the teeth-threatening Canadian pastime of ice hockey. So Carney knows a bit about risk.. On Tuesday May 27 he gave a speech to a conference in London on Inclusive Capitalism. The gab-fest included most of the A-listers of… Continue reading When bankers saw risk as well as reward

Should an independent Scotland be allowed a British vote in 2015?

If Scotland votes in a binding referendum in 2014 to become a foreign country, can the British Constitution allow the Scots to vote in the UK a whole year later in 2015 — or to send MPs to a Parliament and there to make laws for a country which is no longer theirs? For constitutional… Continue reading Should an independent Scotland be allowed a British vote in 2015?

But you can’t trace time…

‘To settle a family argument’, as they say… In the usual robust and frank exchange of views with my brother-in-law, the sort of which customarily take place late in the afternoon following a convivial lunch, we took opposite sides on this point — that a person born in, say, an American or European city in… Continue reading But you can’t trace time…