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…
Selfie Control
Back in the Christians’ Holy Week I saw a cartoon in a magazine. Believers may have been knee-jerk offended by its blasphemy. Not a depiction of the M prophet… the Western world would not have dared… but of their guy Jesus. Jesus and his disciples are seated at the Last Supper. Jesus is holding his phone… Continue reading Selfie Control
There’s a man going round, taking names
To quote the intro to The Six Million Dollar Man, ‘We have the technology…’ To do lots of things, it’s true, but one of them is to assist in the rise to unstoppable power of a demagogue who might make the trains run on time in the UK, but could do the other bad stuff… Continue reading There’s a man going round, taking names
History is the Pitts
For those who love the discoveries of history as I do, you have almost certainly at some time in your life been closer to the slough of despond than an exit off the M4 between Windsor and Reading. History looking like a schoolboy Sisyphus pushing his bike up a one-in-four began for me with the… Continue reading History is the Pitts
Spelling bee is a game of two hives
Can anyone shed any light on a strange cultural diaspora. We get it that the ‘humor/humour’, ‘aluminium/aluminum’, ‘sulfur/sulphur’ etc schism now exists between the predominant forms of English. My question is does anyone know if and when there was some kind of pronouncement from either country, or has it just grown up in a custom… Continue reading Spelling bee is a game of two hives