Even the bad times are good

An irony of the lust for content to fill up hours of broadcast, megabytes of digital and pages of newsprint,  is that one bad thing ‘done good’ for a Presidential candidate, while a good thing ‘done bad’ for the other. The bad thing? Thoughts of an assassination.  Nothing makes you look more Presidential — like Ronald Reagan resurrected… Continue reading Even the bad times are good

Mia constitutional crisis e sua constitutional crisis

We are spectators as some settled precepts of democracy come unglued. It is happening in the two countries where you’d bet the farm it would not have happened. Might it be that old, comforting representative democracy is just town crier in a Twitter age? There is not much to add about the US where the FBI —… Continue reading Mia constitutional crisis e sua constitutional crisis

Telephone’s early adopters

An aside into Victorian business life is the fact that when a London solicitors sent a letter on April 27 1885, its headed paper quoted the firm’s telephone number. The number was 1095 and there genuinely were another 1094 phones in businesses and a few private houses that the law firm could have called and been… Continue reading Telephone’s early adopters

Halloween? just call it Christmas

  Lacking a Fourth of July or a Thanksgiving, over the past decade British shopkeepers have rushed to stock the Chinese-made paraphernalia of Halloween just to keep their cash tills ticking to tide them over till Christmas when they can begin shelving their supplies of Easter Eggs and Valentine’s Day cards. Too often you hear… Continue reading Halloween? just call it Christmas

More inconvenient truths about global warming

The folklore has it that it is hotter now than it was before. You are told it repeatedly until you are convinced and then you tell someone else. Global warming has gone viral. Is the testimony of history the cure? Here is a story from 1825 and from the little Irish town of Inistioge in County Kilkenny,… Continue reading More inconvenient truths about global warming

Old Slaughter’s Coffee House; ‘Now among the things that were…’

  Thursday March 30 1843 saw the auctioning off of a London landmark just for its building materials. The wildly misnamed and deeply corrupt government department, the Commissioners of Woods and Forests, had bought the site at number 74 St Martin’s Lane. There was not a wood nor forest in sight, but Woods and Forests was conducting… Continue reading Old Slaughter’s Coffee House; ‘Now among the things that were…’

a watched pot.

The chance discovery of penicillin, Newton’s apple and Galileo’s pendulum all over again…

Just sayin’

Geopolitical high stakes gambler President Putin is so patriotically affronted by NATO tanks on his front lawn in the Baltic region that there is one sign at least that he might just be contemplating to engineer a ‘crisis’ in Kaliningrad. Kaliningrad, for those like me who really forgot that it existed, it’s Russia, but not as… Continue reading Just sayin’

E Pur Si Muove, numero due

Whether Galileo did actually mutter under his breath that phrase about the earth still moving or not, there is a contrarian streak in some people that defies plagiarising ‘accepted’ wisdom and using it as their own. As the Christian philosopher, Wink Martindale, spoke, “Friends, the story is true. I know, I was that soldier.” Anyhoo… There… Continue reading E Pur Si Muove, numero due