I understand politics, I just don't like it...

Why is it that when the Chancellor of the Exchequer says that the economic times faced by Britain and the rest of the world "are arguably the worst they've been in 60 years" is it suggested that he is damaging the economy?

Check out what David Cameron has to say:

"I think it's extraordinary that the chancellor said it, because – remember – a chancellor of the exchequer has got to think not only 'I must tell the truth at all times' but also 'I must use my words carefully, so that I don't actually create a situation that's even worse, that creates a crisis of confidence'."

The "crisis of confidence" was apparently indicated by a fall in the value of Sterling.

However I'm still having difficulty with the idea that telling the truth at all times is a bad thing in a politician, particularly when you're dealing with your own constituents (the British people).

It's possible there is a causal connection between what Darling said and the fall in Sterling (I don't understand currency trading enough to know if this is an entirely bad thing or not --- doesn't it mean that we'll be able to sell stuff abroad more easily?) but if Darling is telling the truth then perhaps this fall in Sterling is entirely warranted, and would have happened anyway once everyone else caught on to the Chancellor's way of thinking.

And if he's wrong then it doesn't matter either, because if GDP starts growing again and inflation and unemployment continue to remain low then things will be alright.

In short, Darling is hoping for the best but preparing (and warning us about) the worst.

It's important that politicians be honest and straightforward with the public, so why is Alastair Darling being criticised for commenting on the economic outlook? He is, after all, the government minister in charge of the Treasury.

And it seems I am not alone in thinking this, here are the results of a Guardian poll asking the question "do you admire Darling's frankness?":

Well said, Darling

There seems to be a disjoint between the public's perception (a politician not only telling the truth, but being honest and open with his opinions) and the perception of rival politicians and some in the media who see this as a mistake.

It does seem a bit overblown to say that things are the worst they've been since 1948. I'm pretty sure they aren't. But Darling is the professional so I suppose if he says it is there's a chance he's right.

Alright, but how does it affect me?

[evil self-interested guy]

As a subject of Constitutional Monarch Elizabeth Windsor, I don't really have any right to comment on who the citizens of the USA decide to choose to be their Supreme Overlord.

However I am entitled to ask "how does it affect me?"

As for individual Americans Barack Obama is the correct choice, in terms of healthcare, education, and general niceness, but obviously that is entirely irrelevant to me. Let the rednecks enjoy their quadrennial bend-over fest once again and let them keep their damned assault rifles. Psshft.

[/evil self-interested guy]

My compassion for all people is severely tested by George W Bush, and the idea that John McCain might be a good choice of President for the USA. Whatever.

[evil self-interested guy]

The only real way that US foreign policy has directly impinged on my own life is through the Iraq War, and namely the fact that I (or rather a bunch of my associates) will have to pay for a part of it as British tax payers. Also some soldiers probably got killed and the whole business has has the whole world crackin' wise about our mommas.

I suspect, however, that the experience of Iraq, Afghanistan and the whole land-war-in-Asia bit will deter most British politicos from similar adventures over the next few years, and as such even if John "Armageddon" McCain became Prez it would be unlikely I'd find myself paying for another war.

There's also this tiresome business with Russia, Georgia and some godforsaken miserable hole called South Ossetia. I don't much care for the whole damned situation. Our Foreign Secretary has been mouthing off about it in this unintentionally hilarious article in The Guardian:

Ukraine is a leading example of the benefits that accrue when a country takes charge of its own destiny, and seeks alliances with other countries.

So, if South Ossetia decides it wants to take charge of its own destiny and seeks an alliance with Russia that's OK? What is Miliband trying to say here?

Russia is fucked in the long run. Losing 700, 000 people a year to demographic change is the kind of thing you can't ignore, let alone cause you to collapse into nationalistic paranoia, from a BBC Article:

The seriousness of this [demographic] problem has led to an urgent, polarised and often angry debate in Russia about ways to tackle the problem.

Many medical specialists berate the government's apparent inaction over the country's health crisis. It is estimated that a third of Russian men abuse alcohol, while smoking rates are among the highest in the world. New threats, such as the rapid spread of HIV/Aids, merely compound an already bad situation, they say.

Politicians on the nationalist wing of the political spectrum see the hand of the West, and of Russia's "enemies" more widely, in the population decline.

Being briefly buoyed by oil 'n' gas revenues does not excuse completely ignoring the long-term prospects of your people. From Charles Grant in The Guardian:

Russia's Achilles heel is its economy. This has been growing fast, at over 7% a year. Wealth has spread out from the energy companies and the government, helping to create a prosperous middle class. But the economy remains dangerously dependent on energy and raw materials. Russia has very few high-tech industries, its record on innovation is appalling, it has too few small and medium-sized companies and its service industries are backward.

South Ossetia has a population of 70, 000 people! That's one-tenth of the number of people Russia needs to conquer every year to make up its population numbers!

If and when the governments of Eastern Europe and Britain get our act together and roll out our massive nuclear-reactor/clean-coal-plant building programme the whole question of energy security, global warming, and peak oil will sort itself out.

Let the Americans choose whoever they want.

[/evil self-interested guy]

Ubiquity

Nice little add-on for Firefox from Mozilla - Ubiquity. Basically if you want to go from reading Guardian Unlimited to a particular page on Wikipedia, rather than go via a series of point-and-clicks through your browser's search bar you just press ctrl+space, raising a little black box on your browser, and type Wikipedia <some search term>:


This is just an early version, but I like the principle. It minimises the hassle of going from one particular webpage to another.

The Problem of Prohibition

The fundamental problem with prohibition is that it is based on the assumption that, given sufficient policing, the sale of all illegal drugs within a country can be stopped.

This assumption is incorrect. Billions of dollars have gone into attempting to prevent the sale of illegal drugs in the UK and the USA over the past 30 years, and yet illegal drugs can still be bought easily.

Regardless of whether you believe that imbibing cocaine, marijuana, or alcohol for recreational purposes is morally correct, it has to be admitted that prohibition has not effectively solved the various social problems associated with drugs.

It's just a pen!

Prohibition may well have had negative consequences, like the rise of organised crime, and the waste of billions of dollars of US and UK taxpayer's money.

By legalising drugs like cannabis, heroin, and cocaine this money would no longer be going to waste, addicts would be encouraged to come forward and be rehabilitated, criminals and terrorists would no longer be in control of the supply of drugs, and the money made through the sale of the drugs would go to the state and be spent as directed by the democratically-elected representatives or the people, rather than the aforementioned terrorists and gangsters.

Then there is the problem that people draw a line between tobacco/alcohol and heroin/cannabis.

This artificial distinction is based more on the vested interests of politicians than on any real judgement on the relative health-problems associated with both sets of drugs.

Many politicians believe that any attempt made to legalise drugs would be attacked by tabloid newspapers and they would lose votes because of it.

I agree with the suggestion of Dr Nick Maurice in his letter in response to Julian Critchley's excellent article on the subject:

For those of us who have been at the forefront of helping people with drug problems for many years (in my case, as a GP and founder and first chairman of Druglink, the Swindon drugs advisory service), we feel desperate that after 20 years of campaigning, there is no political change.

There have to be two major pieces of work. The first is a clear and respected academic social and medical study of the causal effect of prohibition on drug-related crime and its impact and cost, and on the morbidity and mortality of drug users.

This study should be commissioned and "owned" by politicians from all political parties. We cannot, and should not, depend on anecdote to change people's minds, and I have many, including deaths of four young people in my practice over a six-year span caused ultimately by the prohibition of drug use.

Second, based on that research, those cross-party politicians have to be persuaded to collaborate over a drugs policy, using all the advice they can get from front-line workers and users, and make that a policy they can all sign up to, rather than kowtowing to the right-wing press to ensure they get into power at the next election.

It is essential that real, empirical evidence is assembled that reflects the reality of the War on Drugs.

[image from Lindsey Spirit on flickr]

Blogging my life away...

Paul Carr has some interesting points about the issue of how much having a blog/social networking page/online presence of any kind can damage your career/political prospects.

This is something that has bothered my slightly in the past.

Definitely not my style

Carr's solution is to simply accept that he will never be able to rise within a big company or become Prime Minister.

I, on the other hand, suspect hope that blogs will probably be pretty much irrelevant as far as politics/career prospects are concerned - everyone in my generation will have some kind of online presence - and anyone who doesn't will be, well, a bit weird...

Kinda like they thought they might run for office from the age of 12...

Obviously if there are any major racist/evil points then these will be a problem. But I haven't written anything like that.

I am a hard worker

But looking back over the stuff I've put online over the past few years, there's nothing I'm particularly ashamed of...

Maybe the £30 million thing...

But I would actually like £30 million! There's nothing wrong with that!

Also there's my relentless criticism of Middle England. I guess this pretty much disqualifies me from political office in England. Damn.

[images from the Sachs Report]

Offensive People

I just served a late-middle-aged woman whose response, when I informed her that we did not in fact sell stamps (although we do sell postcards) was a slightly sarcastic:

"Oh well that's helpful."

I have a problem with offensive people - it is not that I react badly to them - rather I am dismayed at the trail of misery and destruction these people must surely leave behind them, particularly as a result of encounters with people who are less outwardly tolerant than I.

I know people who would have responded extremely badly to this woman.

*sigh*

Nothing else to report.

LITERALLY AS I AM WRITING THIS:

Another late-middle aged woman enters in the company of a small pink-clothed child, declaiming in a loud voice:

Let's see if they have any tea-towels...

Mildly irritated that rather than ask me for the tea-towels she directed the question to the room at large (or possibly her small companion), thereby avoiding saying "please" and indeed directly addressing me personally in any way.

When I informed her of the price (£3.50) she informed me (or again, possibly her small companion or the room at large) that:

Oooh, well they're £2.50 in Wales, and they're the same material and everything...

If I were less tolerant I would have asked if they had tasteful pictures of local Stratford-upon-Avon landmarks on them. Once we had established that the Welsh alternative did not, I would have inquired as to the relevance of her comment and to the rationality of her purported desire to purchase such an item in Stratford rather than, say, Cardiff if she found the price difference so objectionable.

Fortunately I am extremely tolerant and she did in fact purchase one.

There's one born every minute.

A moment of history...

George Monbiot finally admits nuclear power might just be part of the solution:

"I have now reached the point at which I no longer care whether or not the answer is nuclear.

Let it happen - as long as its total emissions are taken into account, we know exactly how and where the waste is to be buried, how much this will cost and who will pay, and there is a legal guarantee that no civil nuclear materials will be used by the military.

We can no longer afford any rigid principle but one: that the harm done to people living now and in the future must be minimised by the most effective means, whatever they might be."

Huzzah for compromise!

Polly Toynbee's new book: "Unjust Rewards"

I've taken to reading newspapers so obsessively I sometimes have difficulty remembering that most of what is written in them is self-indulgent wank of a magnitude equaled only by my own bloviations.

In that spirit...

The area of political discussion in which I feel most conflicted is that of the distribution of wealth.

Polly Toynbee published a book today called Unjust Rewards. An excerpt from the book can be read here and another article discussing the same ideas can be read here.

History, many like to believe, is a Whiggish tale of wealth, social progress and fairer distribution, an onward march: we all wear the same clothes, meet on equal terms on Facebook.

[[[In terms of social deference, we are certainly more equal now.]]]

Yet background predicts who will run the banks and who will clean their floors. It's not happenstance; it is largely pre-programmed.

[[[This is an issue of education and social policy, rather than how much banks pay their employees.]]]

General mobility is a myth. The top 10% of income earners get 27.3% of the cake, while the bottom 10% get just 2.6%.

[[[The solution then, would be to work towards equality of opportunity.]]]

Twenty years ago the average chief executive of a FTSE 100 company earned 17 times the average employee's pay; now it is more than 75 times.

Toynbee uses a very specific line of attack. Rather than suggest that self-made entrepreneurs like Richard Branson, Felix Dennis, or Alan Sugar should pay up she is attacking "fat cat" directors, wealthy lawyers, and bonus-acquiring bankers:

High-earners tend to be elusive, preserving their privacy at home and at work, journeying between them in expensive cars.

[[[Nice lifestyle.]]]

But in sessions conducted by Ipsos Mori over two evenings we did meet partners in a law firm of international renown and senior staff from equally world-famous merchant banks.

Their business is money, and they make it: the law partners earned between £500,000 and £1.5m per year, putting them in the top 0.1% of earners in the UK, while the merchant bankers ranged from £150,000 up to £10m.

[[[Good money if you can get it then.]]]

Toynbee is suggesting it is unfair that people should earn these amounts of money. She demonstrates that they are both ignorant of the plight of the poor, but are still highly opinionated on social policy:

How much, we asked our group, would it take to put someone in the top 10% of earners? They put the figure at £162,000.

In fact, in 2007 it was around £39,825, the point at which the top tax band began. Our group found it hard to believe that nine-tenths of the UK's 32m taxpayers earned less than that.

As for the poverty threshold, our lawyers and bankers fixed it at £22,000. But that sum was just under median earnings, which meant they regarded ordinary wages as poverty pay.

[[[Ignorance is no excuse for anything.]]]

...

Once our conversation turned to tax, the high-earners' arguments against rebalancing the system ranged from threat to bluster to attack.

Response one: we will leave, and you will be poorer. Or: we don't deserve to be forced to pay more. Or: even if we were taxed more, the money would all be wasted.

[[[Well these are fair points. Still, I reckon it would still be fairer if people paid a little more on earnings over, say, £100, 000]]]
...

Masters of the universe our groups might be, but their outlook was pure Daily Mail: "Single people . . . get pregnant and get a flat and more money. You just see everybody pushing prams, then they'll get more income and a little flat that they can stay in for life."

[[[Which only demonstrates that stupidity and ignorance is no barrier to success, which is reassuring.]]]

There was much talk of the perverse incentives for single parenthood, with one banker complaining that the 18-year-old mother on benefits "doesn't get that much less money than another 18-year-old working in a shop". It didn't seem to occur to this speaker that the shop worker's pay might also be too low.

[[[Well OK. But his basic point that there is a perverse incentive to state-dependence remains.]]]

They were contemptuous of anything that gave extra money directly to poorer people: "This thing of giving pregnant women £200 for dietary supplements. Like, as if they'll really spend it on fruit."

[[[Chocolates and crisps and cola and donuts.]]]

Most were adamant, along with this banker: "We don't think just chucking money at the welfare state is the answer."

From what I can gather this is a polemical rant, on Toynbee's part, rather than a constructive attempt to actually work things out.

I think on balance I dislike Toynbee's hectoring self-importance more than the ignorance and prejudice of the wealthy.

The Political Narrative as I understand it

Following WWII there was something called the post war consensus. This involved something called Keynesianism.

Keynes was an economist who believed that nation states had an important part to play in the economy of a country. He said that nation states should invest in infrastructure and alter interest rates so as to minimise unemployment and keep inflation under control.

For some reason the UK didn't do so well between the late 1950s and late 1970s. I don't know why this is.

Whatever the cause, the result was inefficient, state-run industry dominated by powerful unions that enforced work practices that prevented the UK from developing economically.

Because the nation state controlled so many businesses and organisations they were more concerned with the affect of firing employees and cutting wages than with customer satisfaction and value-for-money.

This resulted in extreme economic problems in the late 1970s. This involved something called the Winter of Discontent.

Then there was Margaret Thatcher.

Margaret Thatcher agreed with two people called Friedrich Hayek and Milton Friedman. Thatcher believed in free-market solutions and privatisation of state-run companies. She believed in reducing the size of the welfare state and in the importance of the individual choices rather than the will of the collective.

She was also a monetarist. I think that means that in order to control inflation, you have to control the supply of money by controlling interest rates.

Thatcher's policies had some positive effects. The UK was no longer called "the sick man of Europe."

Thatcher also used Britain's celebrated military might to reclaim the Falkland Islands. This was probably a good thing for the inhabitants of the Falklands, and meant that patriotic Brits and Middle England started to like Margaret Thatcher.

Because of the Falklands War, and a world-wide economic boom in the late 1980s, Thatcher become very popular.

She didn't like the EU very much. I think it was because she saw it as undemocratic and wasteful.

After Thatcher and John Major there came New Labour. New Labour was basically the old Labour party but re-branded so as to be appealing to Middle England.

Middle England consists of people who want extremely high-quality public services as well as low taxes. Middle England doesn't want to be bothered by the nation state but Middle Englanders have strong moral values that they believe should be enforced on people who like to take drugs, stupid criminals, people who like to have sex with other people of their own gender, and people who are simultaneously female and professionally successful. Middle England likes prisons because they believe prisons solve crime. Middle England likes animals but doesn't like foreigners. Middle Englanders believe taking drugs is wrong, but Middle England likes beer and wine. Middle England doesn't like immigrants.

Samuel Johnson recognised the kind of people who inhabit Middle England very early on:

"There will always be a part, and always a very large part of every community, that have no care but for themselves, and whose care for themselves reaches little further than impatience of immediate pain, and eagerness for the nearest good."

Although Labour didn't like Middle England very much they needed Middle England to vote for them. New Labour adopted a lot of Tory ideas about fiscal policy, authoritarianism, and immigration, in order to appeal to Middle England.

New Labour promised to spend a lot of money on public services like the NHS, but promised not to raise taxes. They did raise indirect taxes, and they used tricks like Public Private Partnerships to raise debt but keep it off the balance sheet, and they also got into a lot of debt.

In order to put power and wealth in the hands of the many and not the few, New Labour introduced policies like family tax credits and education maintenance allowance.

This may or may not have been the largest state-backed redistribution of wealth in history.

In order to trick Middle England into voting for them New Labour had to pretend to believe in all the things Middle England believed in.

Now that Labour is unpopular, because the economy is apparently not doing so well and credit is difficult to get hold of the Media is saying that Labour is finished.

The presumption is the Tories are doing exactly what New Labour did, by tricking Middle England into voting for them they can gain power and do what they actually want.

The only difference is instead of giving money to poor people the Tories would give money to rich people.

My family receives family tax credits and I received the EMA. On the other hand my Father runs a small business. Hopefully the reduction in business rates that the Tories should introduce will offset the loss of the family tax credits.

The only two things I actually care about in politics are the creation of a sustainable and environmentally friendly society and a high standard of living and quality of life for everyone in every country on Earth.

I don't much see the point in feeling sentimentally attached to a particular country just because I happen to be born there. I am lucky to have been born in a Western liberal democracy, but I just don't see the point of patriotism.

I'm not sure what the best way of accomplishing these twin goals of environmental sustainability and global happiness. I don't know enough about economics and politics yet. However I suspect that an ideological approach is flawed.

By that I mean that instead of creating a political ideology, like Keynesianism, or Neoliberalism, and then trying to apply it to the real world. Why not just do things in a methodical way, see what works and what doesn't, and then apply the lessons you have learnt to new policy?

Obviously you'd have to base policy on empirical knowledge of economics, human behaviour, technology, politics, psychology, and heuristics.

Is suspect that the power of governments (as opposed to the state) is limited. Change is difficult and slow, and the only really big changes come from inventors, scientists, entrepreneurs, and engineers.

Politicians are mostly left to tinker around the edges and waste money on wars.

It's bad form to finish an essay with a quotation, so here's two:

"Hey, this is Europe. We took it from nobody; we won it from the bare soil that the ice left. The bones of our ancestors, and the stones of their works, are everywhere. Our liberties were won in wars and revolutions so terrible that we do not fear our governors: they fear us. Our children giggle and eat ice-cream in the palaces of past rulers. We snap our fingers at kings. We laugh at popes. When we have built up tyrants, we have brought them down. And we have nuclear *fucking* weapons."

-- Ken Macleod

"History is moved by big socio-economic things that individuals have no affect on. The best we can do is try to make a bit of cash.

-- Blackadder

There is no conspiracy

From today's Guardian:


[relevent stories here, here, and here]

What I read on my holidays...

For the last seven days of camping in Cornwall (or Kernow, in the sense that Burma should be called Myanmar) I aimed to clear up a huge chunk of my to read list.

As usual I overestimated how fast I could read. I managed the last two-hundred pages of Tom Wolfe's A Man in Full and the entire 730 pages of The Bonfire of the Vanities, as well as the first one-hundred pages of The Yiddish Policemen's Union.

In my copy the eye in "Tom" is part of an image on the inside cover

That's 284, 700 words in The Bonfire of the Vanities, plus 78, 000 of A Man in Full, bringing the total number of words by Tom Wolfe I read over the holidays to 362, 700. Then another 33, 000 words of Michael Chabon's brilliant The Yiddish Policemen's Union.

As to Wolfe - he writes superb prose, and is characterisation is excellent. The sense of reality that underpins the text makes his style even more compelling. The description of prison life in Santa Rita and the political machinations of the mayor in A Man in Full have a kind of real-world grittiness which, even if completely false, at least discourages me from ever trying to ascertain their truth for myself.



Spoiler alert:



As an aside, it is extraordinary how much of the plot of The Bonfire the Vanities would be implausible were the novel set in 2007 rather than 1987 (the date it was first published). The key event of the book involves a wealthy Wall Street bond trader getting lost in the Bronx in his luxury Mercedes. With satellite navigation built in to most luxury coupes this is an unlikely proposition in this century.

A narrative solution?

Another event is the selfsame Wall Street bond trader inadvertently dialling his home-number rather than that of his mistress from a pay phone outside his house.

Again, with ubiquitous mobile phones equipped with speed dial this is unlikely (the narrative equivalent would be the wife looking through her husband's text messages).



End of spoilers.



The Yiddish Policemen's Union is rather superb. It's written in a present-tense, sing-song style that (according to Cory Doctorow) evokes the unique qualities of Yiddish speech.

As with Tom Wolfe's reporting-style nonfiction novels there is something reassuringly real about how Michael Chabon writes.

Nice cover art as well

There is a problem in a lot of classic or hard SF (I'm thinking specifically of most of what Arthur C. Clarke wrote, Stephen Baxter's Xeelee and Manifold series of books and pretty much everything written by Isaac Asimov) where the fantastic nature of the surroundings overwhelms any attempt at creating strong characters or building "reality" into the text.

Chabon creates an alternate world but rather than indulge in gratuitous info-dumping he drives the plot via a murder mystery and political intrigue.

[images from Unhindered by Talent, Amazon.co.uk, and Illarty.com]

Geek Culture

People seem to crave identity: in lieu of creating their own they often adopt a pre-defined set of mannerisms, beliefs, clothes, attitudes and habits.

I present an excerpt from my upcoming work: A Field Guide to the Tribes of the Left Hemisphere:

You're shitting me, right?

[images from here, here, here, here, and here]

We're all doomed...

Well so much for that. I had personally been willing to consider that the programme was more than pseudo-scientific bull-hockey because I'm a sucker for the underdog and relish dissenting opinions.

Woody Guthrie's Birthday

Observation

To win an argument, it is not enough to have the correct answer to a question, one must also be the one who successfully frames the question.

That's right: you are right to worry

For example: in the UK at the moment concerning the issue of immigration the question is "how do we reduce it?"

But with an aging population and an increasing need of skilled labour it is obvious that the question we should be asking is "how do we enhance the benefits of immigration?" Or better yet "how do we increase immigration?"

Damn straight

Those who are against immigration for short-sighted and selfish reasons have successfully framed the question, so that they will always win. If people think that immigration is a bad thing then anyone who proposes measures to reduce it will be seen to be solving the problem.

However the question "how do we reduce immigration?" begs the question "do we want to reduce immigration?" This is a question that is never discussed.

[images from Daily Hate and alex-s on flickr]

Review: The Taming of the Shrew

Playing at the RSC, The Taming of the Shrew. It was pretty good. The opening "play within a play" conceit included a pole-dancing segment and drunken hooligans, highlighting the inherent misogyny and sexism of modern life.

It's difficult to nail The Shrew. On the one hand it's clearly dated and was probably completely sincere, without any trace of irony. However it is useful in that it demonstrates how far women have come and causes us to reflect on where they are to go.

The performances were all brilliant. Stephen Boxer went from playing Sly to Petruchio brilliantly. Michelle Gomez played a brilliantly eccentric Kate.

All good stuff.

Not much of a review: but it's Shakespeare! And it was well performed etc.

Review: Hancock

Here Be Spoilers:

An interesting film. What started off as a light hearted comedy segued into an Epic superhero story without any kind of explanation. The direction reminded me a little of Arrested Development, lots of fly-on-the-wall shots and shaky camera work.

There was material here for two or three movies:

1. A comedy about an alcoholic superhero that meets a PR man, attempts to steal the PR man's hot wife, and comes up against some kind of whacky supervillain. Meanwhile the penultimate scene has the PR man having to choose between helping the superhero who attempted to take his wife and helping the villain who gives the PR man everything he ever dreamed of.
2. An Epic, centuries-spanning quasi-classical tale of Gods and hubris, with no irony or reflection. Probably a fairly crap film.
   
3. The same film as the previous one but with irony. With a dash of humour and a self-awareness of absurdity.

A decent but schizophrenic movie, I felt. It lacked a really bad supervillain as foil to Hancock - Charlize Theron doesn't count as she was kinda on the same side.

The ending was weak. It started well, and if I had only seen the trailer I would have been quite happy with the movie.

[image from mlive.com]

And Oh How the Mighty Have Fallen...

What a load of nonsense.

This is the best summary of what might have happened that I can find.

I, for One, Applaud the Success of our Planetary Engineers...

...with the news that the fabled North-West passage is now open and should soon be suitable for trans-Oceanic freight.

Huzzah for Global Warming

Suck it, Panama! (in a couple of decades or so...)

Tom Harris MP: "Stop being Miserable!"

Journalist Michael Kinsley once said that "a gaffe is when a politician tells the truth."

In the case of junior minister Tom Harris this is entirely correct: he suggested on his blog And Another Thing that the public should cheer up, considering that they've never had it so good:

In our own country today, despite the recent credit squeeze, our citizens have never been so wealthy. High-def TVs fly off the shelves at Tesco quicker than they can be imported. Whatever the latest technological innovation, most people can treat themselves to it. Eating out - a rare treat when I was a child in the ’70s - is as commonplace as going shopping. And when we do go shopping, whether for groceries or for clothes, we spend money in quantities that would have made our parents gasp.

This is a point I always raise when people suggest "this country is going to the dogs!" How exactly is it?

Although I believe that open debate is an essential component of democracy, why do we glorify in complaining so much? So petrol prices are high. The prices of clothes and electronics are down. And maybe if people walked rather than drove their cars they'd save money and be healthier.

Living Longer ... and Longer

The Daily Mail took exception to Harris' remarks (I'm not linking - I dislike the Mail's editorial stance on immigration, gay marriage, women's issues, abortion, foreign policy, education, crime - as such I don't want to contribute my Google-mana to their cause). His response is clear:

I know it’s only the Mail, but for the record, I absolutely was not telling people to cheer up. I was simply asking why people in the current generation - even those who aren’t suffering as much from the current economic slowdown - aren’t as happy as our parents’ generation. Am I being too optimistic in expecting a grown-up debate about this?

Apparently he is. I am incredibly fortunate to be living in the UK at this time in history. I'd say being middle-class in the UK is probably amongst the top five best possible states for a person to exist in all history.

Like. Things have never been better.

I think nostalgia and sentimentalism for the past are negative forces in debate. If something can be shown to have got worse, bring it up. Otherwise people should be suggesting how things can be improved, rather than complaining that they think things have got worse.

In a more general sense, polymath intellectual Stewart Brand (Whole Earth Catalog, The Well) comments that "good old stuff sucks" in The World Question Centre's What Have you Changed your Mind About?:

Remodeling an old farmhouse two years ago and replacing its sash windows, I discovered the current state of window technology. A standard Andersen window, factory-made exactly to the dimensions you want, has superb insulation qualities; superb hinges, crank, and lock; a flick-in, flick-out screen; and it looks great. The same goes for the new kinds of doors, kitchen cabinetry, and even furniture feet that are available — all drastically improved.

The message finally got through. Good old stuff sucks. Sticking with the fine old whatevers is like wearing 100% cotton in the mountains; it's just stupid.

Give me 100% not-cotton clothing, genetically modified food (from a farmers' market, preferably), this-year's laptop, cutting-edge dentistry and drugs.

The idea that things have become progressively worse over the last fifty years (at least in the world's Western liberal democracies) is ridiculous.

[ImageWorldGDP from here, Life Expectancy at 65 from here]

Sonny J: Handsfree (If You Hold my Hand)

Utterly awesome:

New Colour Scheme

To celebrate the imminent surcease of my despised teenagerhood (six months and counting) I have decided to remove my depressing and difficult-to-read white-on-black colour scheme of the past two years and replace it with an airier, more mature, and pleasant black-on-white colour scheme.

Old blog

I'm quite happy about it.

There is No God, And Your Idiotic Human Ideals are Laughable!

A good article by Ariane Sherine over on CiF on the apparent gap between atheist expression and religious expression in the public sphere.

I personally think this is because atheists tend to be well-balanced, intelligent, and self-contained individuals that don't need to ascribe to a tribalistic ideology to support their egos.

However I would certainly not describe myself as well-balanced, intelligent, or self-contained. As such:

We're not asking you to believe, it's true anyway

[original image by SideLong on flickr]

Superclass and the New Elite

I've mentioned my obsession with the ultra-wealthy before. Reading David J. Rothkopf's The Superclass: The Global Power Elite and the World They Are Making today I was stuck by the utterly unoriginal insight that it might not be that much fun being an elite.

Rothkopf punctures a lot of the usual paranoid beliefs about a mysterious global elite - he observes that conspiracy theories are almost always psychologically comforting fictions: it is disturbing to think that one man, working alone, can assassinate a president.

This fact suggests a random and capricious universe. Much better to imagine that bad things that happen are the result of organised conspiracy.

However I do feel that it isn't really worth being a member of any kind of global elite.

The symbol of the global elite

Constant pressures on your time; scrutiny from the press, your peers, and governments; concerns over kidnapping, and the happiness of your friends and family would probably nullify most of the advantages of being extremely wealthy and/or powerful.

No, not for me famous, multi-billionaire status. Give me £30 million and obscurity, reputably and happily earned, and I will be satisfied.

New Year Resolutions

Why? Because it's been nearly six months and I've finally formulated the perfect resolutions. Here they are:

1. Legally purchase every single track of music I have on my PC.
   
2. Improve my German and French to the extent that I can translate the main, front-page article of both Die Welt and Le Monde into English without having to look up any words.
3. Read Sam's Teach Yourself C++ in 21 Days.
4. Read one fictional classic, and one non-fiction classic. At the moment I'm thinking War and Peace and The Wealth of Nations.
5. Quit my job.
6. Start higher education again.
   

Mmm. This is not actually as interesting as it seemed in my head.

As compensation, here is the picture of the Firefox girl:

For your delectation or sneering

New Firefox 3

It is actually surprisingly good. Websites load appreciably faster. Other than that usability seem to be about the same.

There was actually a picture of an attractive woman in a Firefox top. But how could I pass up the crop-circle reference? Tears.

Firefox 3 has yet to do anything that seriously irritates me. This means I already consider it to be good software.

Maths and Melancholy

For a while now I've been meaning to write a very long post about maths, science, religion, and education.

The fact that I never finished the essay is testament to the fact that education is an immensely complex issue, and invites ignorant and uneducated opinion.

Take this appallingly titled article by Simon Jenkins: Maths? I breakfasted on quadratic equations, but it was a waste of time. Right, OK. Where to begin?

This all seems to be in response to something called The Reform Report, which has been compiled from a think tank called Reform.

Anyway let's look at what Jenkins says:

"In the age of computers, maths beyond simple and applied arithmetic is needed only by specialists. Ramming it down pupils' throats in case they may one day need it is like making us all know how to recalibrate a carburettor on the offchance that we might become racing drivers. Maths is a "skill to a purpose", and we would should ponder the purpose before overselling the skill."

Riiiight. So a journalist thinks that in the age of computers complex maths is needed only by specialists.

If economic prosperity is still considered a Good Thing, then surely preparing students for high-paying and rewarding roles in finance, economics, engineering, business, and science by promoting maths is a positive step. Anyway, let us ponder:

"When Kenneth Baker invented the national curriculum in 1987, it never occurred to him to question its content. Science and maths lobbied hard and captured the core, alongside only English. Not just history and geography, but economics, health, psychology, citizenship, politics and law - with far better claims to vocational utility - were elbowed aside."

All of those subjects have a strong claim to vocational utility. But there is a distinction between vocational utility and simple utility.

Learning psychology is fair enough: but without knowledge of statistics how are you to interpret pschological studies? Learning economics is good: but a central part of economic modelling relies on a knowledge of mathematics.

Maths is a subject that ensures all doors into future careers are kept open. Liberal arts still offer enormous choice but you are still locked out of some career paths.

Anyway as Ben Goldacre points out, there is some questionable use of maths in the Reform report itself.

I feel much more comfortable with the third way: no more conflict between arts and science and engineering, just an understanding that well-rounded people should be versed in as many subjects as possible.

One Last Post...

One of the more annoying aspects of the NewsCloud is it's tendency to simplify then exaggerate.

Take science vs. religion.

The mere fact that you have some idea of what I'm talking about it disgusting. How can such a puerile expression be useful? As a mental hook for something so complex and profound (and so misunderstood) that it escapes almost all serious consideration.

In the last 24 hours the British parliament has been debating and voting on a series of issues associated with abortion (should the last date at which an abortion can happen be lowered from 24 weeks), hybrid embryo research, and saviour siblings.

Some tasteful sketches of a foetus from Leonardo da Vinci

All these are important issues. I won't comment on them because there are facets of the debate (particularly associated with abortion), which I simple don't know about.

These issues are important and as such they should be treated as such. This is not, nor has it ever been, about "science vs. religion."

That expression "S vs. R" begs so many questions it is almost impossible to dissect it without falling into the trap of dignifying the debate, but I will attempt it.

Science is a tool. It is a way of thinking about, and observing the world. Empirical evidence (input from our sensory apparatus, both biological and artificial) and recorded data acquired through empirical means are considered.

Once they have been considered scientists think of ways that any patterns, or lack of pattern, in the data can be explained. They create a hypothesis.

They then attempt to disprove the hypothesis. They create experiments that are intended to disprove their hypothesis. If a hypothesis stands up to this treatment, and the work of one scientist is corroborated by the work of many other scientists, then an hypothesis is accepted as a scientific theory.

Yes, I know there's more to it than that. Check out this document on the scientific method for more details on the subject.

Religion is many things to many people. To me it is yet another system of control, external to myself.

It is also a panacea in moments of weakness. It is a crutch and it is community. Sometimes it is good and sometimes it is bad. Sometimes it is right. Usually it is wrong.

I do not judge those who have faith. I know what faith is. It is like a powerful drug, and it can make difficult things ... less difficult. I have had faith.

It's glowing! It must be SCIENCE!

However I am entirely within my rights to call anyone who believes in the afterlife a fool and anyone who thinks the universe is run by some dude with a beard who isn't a science fiction writer of some sort (if God can't be a science fiction writer, or is not a full-time [and published] science fiction writer I quit - god is wrong and it is immoral to have faith ;-)) an idiot.

Anyway I despise how this argument is corrupted and dragged through the dirt by slavering hacks wanting to churn out copy on a "controversial" debate.

Addendum: I am entirely aware that this article is without evidence, empirical or otherwise. It is also fairly badly written. So sue me.

Business and Capitalism

In recent months there has been an extensive debate in the NewsCloud (I'm fed up with talking about newspapers, media, the press, the blogosphere - the NewsCloud will suffice) about capitalism; where it is going, where it now, and how it got here.

Two articles in the Cloud today highlight two different issues:

1) Luke Johnson writing in the FT comments:

"Innovation and progress come from embracing markets and encouraging entrepreneurs. The world is more competitive than ever; we cannot rely on old industries and the state to maintain our standard of living."

I happen to agree with this. When commentators go on about how awful the credit crunch is and how evil all these userous capitalists are in dragging us into this mess they always fall foul of the fact that they do not have a coherent alternative strategy.

I also agree with Peregrine Worsthorne that a squeeze on the financial industry might lead to an egress of talent away from finance and towards more useful things like medicine, pharmaceutical research, and entrepreneurism.

Johnson goes on to say:

"Markets are naturally dynamic, whereas governments resist change and fresh thinking. According to the Global Entrepreneurship Monitor, overall early-stage entrepreneur activity in Britain involves about 5.6 per cent of the population, a much lower rate than in the US, Brazil or China."

An Entrepreneur

A nation of shopkeepers? I think not. However Johnson makes the point that:

"A slowdown in the economy and rising unemployment might just stimulate more to start their own business as an alternative. This would be the silver lining of the credit crunch cloud."

Although the UK is not openly hostile towards entrepreneurs, they are not afforded the same respect as accountants, physicians, architects, or academics. Johnson describes entrepreneurism as just as much a calling as these respected professions but (partly because of our confused and irritating emphasis on class) in the UK "entrepreneur" is not listed on the job sheet.

2) The second article is from Edward Pearce in The Guardian:

"Modern capitalism has become etiolated. It has flourished lately upon deals ever more remote from raising capital investment for steel mills and biscuit factories, upon leverage and derivatives, upon credit and the ghost of credit, upon financial rice paper."

Speculation seems to be endemic to capitalism. Fortunately all this credit crunch nonsense seems to be having a negligible effect on actual global economic growth. China makes things.

From a science fictional perspective there is something reassurring about this. Times change, technologies change, but wherever there are financial markets there are speculative bubbles, and crashes and crunches.

The two ends of capitalism: the rarified ivory tower of deriveratives of deriveratives (George Soros et al) and the coalface of business and wealth-creation (Felix Dennis, Richard Branson) and the inbetweeners of capital allocators like Warren Buffett.

How it worked in the good old days

The whole wagon will continue rushing into the future. If it all breaks down completely (a situation where "end of the world" insurance would come into play, from Pearce:

"The existence of such manic trade created secondary explosions (or do I mean secondary deposits?) in the insurance world. Here the rule is the greater the likelihood of damage, the higher the premium. But the least probable horrors may be insured against at modest cost. The top point is called "end of the world" insurance, the unthinkable: Hugo Chávez takes over the White House, the moon coming perceptibly nearer. It's so remote it's cheap, $2,000-$3,000 a year rents $10m worth. Or it did. That volume now sets you back $20,000-$30,000."

I know! WTH?) then at least capitalism, or at least the concept of trade, will survive.

A Self-Hating Pedant

...or should that be "A Pedant Who Hates Himself" or "A Pedant Which Hates Himself Because He Is A Pedant" or "A Pedant That Hates Himself, Due To His Pedantry."

Yes.

I am a pedant. I am not especially articulate, and I am not especially critical of others in most circumstances. However I have a verbal tic.

Every time someone is grammatically incorrect in speech, or mis-pronounces a word, I will respond with a correction.

Sometimes I manage to bite my tongue and get away with just thinking the criticism very loudly.

I am aware this is annoying and boorish and I can also bring to mind several occasions when it has got me into little social faux pas.

It is an artifact of my upbringing (and probably one that will, on balance, do more good than harm for me over the course of my life). One of my particular annoyances is when I want to use a word and suddenly realise that although I know perfectly well what it means and how it is spelt I don't know how to pronounce it.

Hegemony.

What? Exactly! Is the "g" like the "j" in "just" or is it like the "g" in "grandma?"

Thank goodness for Wikipedia and the phonetic alphabet.

Anyway Marcel Berlins has written a stock journalistic article: "let's do something really straightforward and easy to make the world a better place."



A long time ago USAmericans, Canadians, and Australians (and New Zealanders, possibly) rationalised their versions of English by pronouncing clerk as "clerk" rather than clerk as in "Clarke" (as in Arthur C...). They also changed the spelling of "colour" to "color" and did a whole load of other sensible things.

But in the UK these words remain irrationally pronounced and spelt.

The reason for this is that there is a very strong vein of illogical, bloody-minded, stupidity in the British (the English, in particular)...

[ouch! my future self just dropped a few points in the speculative polls or whatever the hell the media uses to cripple the democratic process 20 years hence ... don't worry Future Self, you'd never make it as a Tory (you went to comprehensive school for gawd's sake). Go and try to get elected in Scotland. Bashing the English would probably win you some votes there. Go squander what remains of the oil money...]

...that results in things like this (crappy video link, SSM).

It also results in the sort of people whose sense of morality is based around the sort of trash Melanie Phillips writes in the Daily Hate Mail (she's only doing it because she gets paid more as a "right wing" blowhard than a "left wing" blowhard --- and more power to her for it!) getting shirty because something profoundly "British" like inches, pounds, ounces, and pronouncing ghoti "fish" (Google it or read Berlins) is being "attacked" by meddling bureaucrats from Brussels.



None of that was actually very clear, was it?

Essentially a key component of Britishness is doing something stupidly perverse just because you've always done it like that.

Beyond the point of being funny or endearing.

Seriously.



Also: the first two comments on that Marcel Berlins article have a rather lovely bit of pedantry...

A Commentary on Commentaries

At any given time there are a smattering of article in the dead tree press, blogs, websites, and magazine outlets worthy of perusal by anyone with a healthy interest in what is said about what goes on in the world.

Collected here are a few items that I feel are worthy of comment (I'm going to have one post per article, 'cause it's easier that way).

Privacy and social networking are two key components of the zeitgeist of social debate in the first decade of the 21st century. Zoe Williams writes in The Guardian writes of teenagers and online exhibitionism:

"...trying to inculcate discretion at a time when everybody is seeking exposure is like teaching abstinence at a time when all they want to do is have sex. Never mind the rights and wrongs of it, it doesn't work..."

There is no doubt that adolescence is a time when children are emotionally crippled by their own biology until they emerge, as if from a crysalis, into the neurotic grab-bag of talents, proclivities, and questionable ethics that makes up what passes to be a fully-functioning adult and denizen of the 21st century (that's an awful sentence, on two levels, but I will keep it because I enjoyed writing it - damn it!). However. I don't think teenagers are necessarily stupid.

This brings us on to the next key point in Williams' article. Something that has already occurred to most journos and commentators is that all this rubbish that is stuck up on social networking websites will (theoretically) still be there in the year 2020, when yours truly might be thinking of running for election to political office.

What's to be done? Williams suggests:

"...that 15 years hence, people won't need to be protected from their past excesses, because the very fact that this is a universal impulse that social-networking sites merely cater to, will mean that tomorrow's politicians will all have as many skeletons in their closets as one another. In fact, if you don't have a YouTube video from when you were 16, dancing to Britney Spears's Toxic, then it'll be as much an impediment to your public approval rating as being single is today."

This point is well made. I will now smatter this blog with spelling mistakes and grammatical errors, safe in the knowledge that people will draw from this the conclusion that I am "genuine" and "honest about my mistakes."

However they could also conclude that I am too computer-illiterate to spellcheck my post!

[However if Ray Kurzweil is right, by 2020 the computers will have taken over in an event already being labelled as "the technological singularity" - if I'm capaigning on a pro-singularity ticket my spelling mistakes will be interpreted as an early and tacit recognition of the need to augment my feeble human intellect with a Mighty Processor. On the other hand if I'm going to campaign on an anti-singularity platform my PC-illiteracy will be seen as being evidence of my inherent suspicions of technology.]

The agony of indecision! I feel like the press is saying Gordon Brown must be feeling.

I don't owe the person who I will be anything. I would vote for him, but only after a close examination of the policies he supports on a variety of issues and the relative positions of his opponents.

In conclusion if, by 2020, we're still going on and on about politicians' personalities as if they mattered a gnat's shite then Dog help us, Dog help us all.

And You're Only Just Realising This?

There comes a point in every man's life when he realises that he is almost certainly never going to create one of the fundamental circuit elements of electronics.

Also: one of the things that struck me as odd about the recent discovery/invention was how old-fashioned a discovery it seems.

We are no longer used to "fundamental" breakthroughs in areas other than the biological sciences, as Charles Stross comments in this interview:

"We seem these days to be seeing new ground-breaking theoretical developments at a rate of one every six months to a year: breakthroughs on the same order as general relativity or quantum theory. (You don't see such breakthroughs routinely in physics, which is a relatively mature field, but if you look into the biological sciences equivalent breakthroughs appear to be coming thick and fast.)"

There is something wonderfully retro-1950s-buttoned-down-white-labcoat-brylcreme- and-horn-rimmed-glasses about the invention/discovery of the "memristor."

Sadly my knowledge of electronics is ever-so-slightly too limited to truly grasp the theoretical implications of this. However the practical implications look extremely interesting:

"Today, most PCs use dynamic random access memory (DRAM) which loses data when the power is turned off.
But a computer built with memristors could allow PCs that start up instantly, laptops that retain sessions after the battery dies, or mobile phones that can last for weeks without needing a charge."

I spend at least ten minutes every morning waiting for my PC to power up at work (yes I know I could agitate for a better PC... but [deleted due to imminent curtailment of career prospects - free speech go hang]).

Imagine all the time you've spent waiting for a PC to power up: adding up all those two to three minute gaps could make a lot of difference in the world. You probably wouldn't even notice power cuts.

Of course my reading of this is that "instantly" means within a second or two and that the computer would retain the current session.

Anyway there's another thing off my list of things to do before I die...

C'est la vie.

Quotation Phase Space

There is a phase space of excellent quotations.

As the human race progresses human thought will expand through this phase space.

One day in the dim and distant future every thought that can be expressed will be expressed beautifully.

However as things are today this cannot be so.

So I have to add a lenthy addendum; what applies to programming languages also applies, in a slightly altered form, to natural language.

Natural language and expression can either be practical (easy to create and understand, efficient, complete) or beautiful (witty, concise, pleasing to read and hear).

Sometimes it is both.

The quality of being concise in natural languages can be both practical and beautiful. It depends on the user. Sometimes superfluous words aid understanding to someone who is new to the idea, but cause irritation to someone familiar with the idea.

On the other hand in some situations it is important that meaning be transferred as quickly and accurately as possible.

As such safety instructions are rarely written in iambic pentameter.

"Behind the line of white could patrons please remain."

or

"Beware the dog that lives within."

Perhaps one day we will learnt he basic principles behind the creation of natural language, and perhaps then we will be able to "create" one that works really well.

Someone Within Earshot is Perpetrating Morris Dancing

And as such I am doing a roundup of definitions:

Culture: something invented by the Victorians to describe the things people did that weren't directly connected with business, science, sex, politics, or making things.
Culture is nowadays afforded too much respect and taken too seriously.

Politics: the name for the study and practice of groups of people make decisions. It has the potential to be an enlightening and enjoyable experience but is generally irritating, boring, and full of pointless meetings and unnecessary complaining.

Voters: the cause of most of the problems facing any democratic country.

Technology: a much-overused word that should be avoided, if at all possible, in any discussion involving practical problem-solving. It is a general term for a massive variety of things and should be treated as such.
Also it is not synonymous with "consumer electronics" - whatever the BBC and every other news outlet seems to think.
"Technology" is any tangible or material product of the human mind.

Economics: the study and practice of how scarce resources like time, energy, materials and work are distributed.

Money: an arbitrary unit that equates to a certain amount of a particular resource. Money is used to distribute resources.

Those Morris Dancers are still at it!

Back

Sorry for my silence over the last few days. Stuff's been happening.

Anyway I've found a new idle hobby: browsing through the images of the space in which people work on Flickr's Workspace Karma Pool and workspace.

There is something oddly compelling about workspaces. They are a reflection of our passions, desires, neurosese, habits, beliefs and ideosyncracies - a sort of voyeurism of the soul.

Voyeurism in general seems rampant on the web. Anyone who comments on FaceBook will mention the compulsively stalkerish aspect of it.

Privacy, at least as baby boomers understand it, will become a scarce and valuable commodity over the next fifty years.

Addendum: Also, what is with men and Moleskine notebooks? They're great, but most of the satisfaction in them comes from telling other people men how great they are.

This creates a pyramid-scheme-style cascade of smugness, starting with the likes of Mark Twain 100 years ago and carrying on to the present day.

And of course they are great. I mean they really are. They perfectly designed notebooks, and they cost a little more than most, but it's worth it.

Nootropics and Alterable Brains

One of my big philosophical hangups is the nature of the Self. What defines what we are? I don't believe in the idea of soul (although I love Soul music...).

However I also believe that our physical brains are malleable enough to alter any identifiable characteristic of our personalities; our temperament, how we respond to different stimuli, how we react to situations; our emotional, social, philosophical, and intellectual temperaments...

All these can be altered by the twisting and rewiring of neurons in the brain.

This is a fascinating story in The New York Times about Dr Anne Adams, a teacher and scientist, who suffered from a neurological condition called frontotemporal dementia.

This caused her skills, abilities, and interests to shift away from mathematical, language-based, and scientific, and towards visual, spacial, and artistic.

FTD also changes your temperament.

Another story I noticed in the news today was a feature in The Independent about nootropics: these are drugs that improve the abilities of the brain in certain ways.

This sort of technology and this area of study is going to do the same for the 21st century what automobiles, HTA flight, and computers did for the 20th.

We don't even have the language required to describe many of the ideas of how our brain works and psychology and neurobiology are surrounded by myths and perceived weirdness.

Combining greater understanding with an ability to combat pathologies of the brain and even alter the brain to improve it's abilities will lead to a revolution, not just in medicine, but a revolution in what it means to be human.

Whining about My Generation

Considering the environment within which we have been brought up, I am disappointed in my generation.

If there is something we don't approve of we blog, or we set up Facebook groups.

Although we are supposedly incredibly "tech savvy" we only interact with technology in a fairly peripheral way. In fact there is currently a shortage of skilled, creative young programmers.

We don't take action.

It is possible that this is simply a demographic trend. But we are luke-warm on any political or ethical issue.

I, personally, have no strong beliefs whatsoever, but to hear myself going on you'd think I should be doing something to encourage my peers to action over the issues that matter.

But I honestly can't be arsed. Someone else do it. Or pay me...

Oh OK, my generation is pretty good. But we do whine a lot.

More Felix Dennis

Felix Dennis made the front page of The Times today with this interview in which he claims he “killed a man.” It’s an extraordinary claim to make. From what I’ve read about the man it might just be possible; but it is far more likely that it is part of his usual self-aggrandising self-promotion.