November 2014

In case I should be misunderstood, I think the environment is a proper cause for concern. Anyone who has seen the mauvish-grey pall that overhangs large tracts of the country even on a fine day, or has breathed the air of an Indian or Chinese industrial city, will not lightly assert that the state of the atmosphere is of no … [Read on]

The cannibal killer of Caerphilly, Matthew Williams, was shocked by police taser and died shortly thereafter. Whether he died of the shock by taser we do not yet know; but if he had lived no doubt he would by now have been in prison. That, of course, would have been completely illogical. Had he not been released from prison only … [Read on]

In his great book, Russia in 1839, the Marquis de Custine described the Tsar as having been ‘eagle and insect.’ He was eagle because he soared over society, viewing it from on high; he was insect because he burrowed, like a termite, into every nook and cranny of it. Nothing was too small to be beneath his notice, for the … [Read on]

Why cannot people say, or write, what they mean? One reason for obfuscation is that it conceals the banality of what the person says or writes. It can also make something simple sound complex, impressive and highly technical. In a world in which we are subliminally humiliated by the fact that we employ technology whose workings we do not in … [Read on]

I have just discovered further shocking news about disgraceful inequalities in British society. Private schooling was found to be an advantage in the graduate labour market UK graduates who went to private schools earn thousands of pounds more, on average, than their state-educated peers, research finds. The study by the Institute for Fiscal Studies says the pay gap is more than … [Read on]