July 2014

Although football is hardly the American national sport, the New York Times ran more than one article about the German victory in the World Cup, with links to sites that explained the part that advanced technology had played in it. For example, physiological monitoring of the players in training allowed the manager to select those to play who were at … [Read on]

Eighty million passengers pass through Heathrow each year. Planes take off and land on average every 91 seconds, 18 hours a day. They get bigger and faster. A super jumbo can now transport the population of a medieval town half way around the globe in 24 hours. In 25 years if you want speed and have the money a hypersonic … [Read on]

Researching an article about Mr Huhne recently, I was struck by how many public figures now use diminutives of their names. There have always been a few who have done so, of course, but now it is a mass phenomenon, like drunkenness in public. Chris himself does so. Still, one cannot imagine anyone referring to Gladstone as Bill, to Wellington … [Read on]

It isn’t been easy to avoid the World Cup, impossible if one takes the newspapers. Nor has the competition been entirely without interest: for example, how and why does a man like Luis Suarez become a serial biter of his opponents? Why does he not learn to keep his teeth to himself? I suppose the fact that he earns enough … [Read on]

One of the advantages of living in two countries – in my case Britain and France – is the realisation that modern madness is international. This, of course, is a great consolation for any patriot who sees his own country sliding ever further down the slope of institutionalised idiocy. In France, the Minister of National Education, M. Benoît Hamon, has … [Read on]