Lead In Your Pencil

source This is a picture of miners in festive dress outside a graphite mine in Český Krumlov. I did not know that graphite is mined and I did think that it was used in pencils but only about 1% is.

Český Krumlov

Service in Prague is done with all the Gallic charm and urgency of a Parisian waiter in an empty bar. However, other aspects of life here are more appealing; food and transport are cheap and the country is beautiful.

Walled Gardens

Walled Gardens is the title of Annabel Goff’s memoir about her childhood in the south of Ireland in the 1940s and 1950s. (Since describing William Waldegrave’s book as a memoir I now find that it is an autobiography: the former is a description of one part of a person’s life, the latter the whole thing,… Continue reading Walled Gardens

To Jeremy In Islington

This summer I have been trying to interest Jeremy Corbyn in this blog. No good hoping that he will like my politics so I have put in pictures of manhole covers on three occasions. So, Jeremy, now that I have your attention I have some advice for you.

A Matter of Interest

Are you feeling, like me, that your shares haven’t being doing much for a while? A few are up, quite a few down, at best “flat lining”.

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Categorised as Business

Nudge, Nudge

The Nudge Unit has been around since the 1990s and is now grandly called The Behavioural Insights Team. It has subtly and cheaply influenced my behaviour this week.

PR Rant

It is not boring to rant about PR voting. First-Past-The-Posters (FPTPs) may deploy this as an argument, as well as saying that it produces weak government, is unsuited to a two-party system, seldom produces a single party majority and gives you halitosis (not really).

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Categorised as Politics

Rod and Net Fishing

The principal difference between shooting and fishing is that the former is Hatch & Release and the latter Catch & Release. The final outcome for pheasant and fish is very different.

“Double, double, toil and trouble”

Do you like the SNP? I don’t but do not on any account imagine that they are going to disappear in a puff of smoke. Like MacBeth’s witches they are brewing trouble and it is sensible to assume that they will achieve their goal of an independent Scotland sooner than you ever imagined.

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Categorised as Politics