Lifestyle topics
”If you thought “the thought police” existed only in Orwellian fiction, then you haven’t been following a case in the U.K High Court. Douglas Murray Miller, a former constable, had posted a few ribald tweets on the subject of transgender self-identification. (Sample: “I was assigned mammal at birth, but my orientation is fish. Don’t mis-species me”.) …
Europe has acquired a noxious American habit : the Sports Utility Vehicle. A third of new cars sold in Europe are now SUVs. The parents of school kids in my street in east London all seem to have a Nissan Qashqai or BMW X5 parked outside their house. Once, when small cars filled our roads, …
We may think we’ll be here forever – but Robert Harris reckons our civilisation is probably doomed. “The Roman Republic, Cicero, those people were just as clever,” says the novelist, 62. “The things that their society produced – its oratory, its philosophy, its painting – were as sophisticated as anything we do. But still …
John Richards, who is 96 and founded the Apostrophe Protection Society in 2001, is now terminating the Society. He is quoted as saying, “Fewer organisations and individuals are now caring about the correct use of the apostrophe in the English language”. So I thought a brief run- down on the rules would be a good …
Care of the Husband’s Person On 8 April 2010 the London Review of Books reviewed a 14th Century Parisian book of household management called The Good Wife’s Guide: A Medieval Household Book. This is a compendium of medieval lore which aimed to instruct young wives how to be good, efficient, and obedient. The following is …
I suggest that anyone who is reasonably self-aware and seeking to follow in the footsteps of Epicurus should ask whether they have the following personal characteristics which I think are important for humanity. We might think of them as areas to work on for the New Year where instinct tells them they are a bit …
Continue reading ‘How we should treat others – a seasonal exhortation’ »
When they hear the phrase “With the greatest respect…”, 68% of Britons think it means “I think you are an idiot”, while 49% of Americans interpret it as “I am listening to you”. When told “I’ll bear it in mind”, 55% of Britons assume it means “I’ve forgotten it already”, whereas only 38% of Americans …
Rome The number of civil marriage ceremonies in Italy has overtaken the number of church weddings for the first time – a major social shift in the once firmly Catholic country. As recently as 1970, only 2.3% of weddings in Italy were civil ceremonies. Last year, that proportion rose to 50.1%, according to official statistics. …
“Most of the ills relating to our housing start with the morally reprehensible idea that it’s OK in a time of shortage to treat dwellings as mere investments. Yet when the Labour Party in Britain reasonably suggests holiday homes should pay double council tax, affluent owners whimper. Any suggestion of stiffer capital gains gets pearls …
Continue reading ‘A home is not a wallet: homelessness in the UK’ »
To The Guardian I love Kingsley Amis’s response to a challenge about the usefulness of apostrophes: “Those things over there are my husbands.” Three different possible meanings. Bryan Morgan, Worksop, Nottinghamshire …and a butcher’s trick To The. Daily Telegraph: I once saw a notice outside our local butcher. It read “Sausage’s”. When I went in …
You might think that a little more empathy would help to heal the divisions in US politics, but it could actually worsen the situation by increasing polarisation. A recent survey found that those with a disposition for “empathic concern”, one of several traits that make up general empathy, seem to be more politically polarised. They …
Continue reading ‘People with more empathy might be sharpening divisions’ »
The Washington Post of November 30 reported that a decade of low interest rates has allowed companies to sell record amounts of bonds to investors, sending total U.S corporate debt to nearly $10 trillion, or a record 47% of the overall economy. The Federal Reserve, the IMF and major institutional Investors are concerned that the …
According to Equifax the value of unsecured personal loans in the US is up 10% in the last year alone and is similar in size to credit card debt, averaging $16,259. In view of the currently healthy economy and increasing wages for some, this is a bit counter-intuitive. But, whatever the reason, in banking , …
to The Guardian: Notice seen recently in the window of the bookshop in Fowey, Cornwall: “The Post-Apocalyptic Fiction section has been moved to Current Affairs.” Harry Cavill, Camberley, Surrey And an ancient complaint from an Epicurean: At the end of the 4th Century A.D Ammianus complained that the Roman Empire had lost its cultural moorings …
There’s much talk these days about the threat to democracy posed by Kremlin-backed troll factories spreading disinformation online. But maybe we should pay more attention to our own homegrown “astroturfers” – political operators who concoct a following to give the appearance of spontaneous grass roots support. Looking at Facebook, for instance, you’d think frustrated …
British parents are becoming increasingly “abusive” towards teachers, a report by Ofsted has found. The schools watchdog said that teachers are coming under growing pressure from parents who expect instant responses to emails, complain when their children do not get top grades (regardless of effort), and defend their offspring’s poor behaviour instead of siding with …
Abortion rates in the developed world have been declining for 25 years and are at an historic low. There were 27 abortions per 1000 women between 2010 and 2014, down from 40 per 1000 between 1990 and 1994. The total number of abortions fell from 12 million to 7 million in 2014. Because of the …
Many arguments are made with minimal understanding, or based on false premises. Simply asking for more detail and forcing someone to take you through their thinking step by step can expose this. It’s not enough just to give evidence that something is false. To convince the other party, provide an alternative explanation to fill the …
Continue reading ‘Tip of the week… how to win an argument’ »
As factories in the West have been dismantled, and their work outsourced or replaced with automation, large parts of Western economies have been left with little to do. To be a good citizen in our culture, you need to be a productive citizen. Yet there is less than ever that actually needs to be produced. …
In his book, “The Meritocracy Trap” Prof Daniel Markovits argues in the book that the American economy has become grossly inequitable and misery- inducing precisely because of the success of the meritocracy, which has divided the economy into the haves and have- nots in an unprecedented, legacy students, manner. The meritocracy really do “earn” their …
Two years ago the National Crime Agency revealed there are up to 80,000 people in the UK who present some kind of sexual threat to children online – a figure some experts say is conservative. (Guardian 3 Sep 2018) Really? How can normal, decent people comprehend such a figure? The word “disgusting” doesn’t do it …
To The Times “The naming of grandmothers as “nanny” has little to do with goats, but is a hypocoristic form found throughout the Indo-European language family, in use thousands of years ago before the language groups split. It was found, for example, in the Indian word ‘nani’ (grandmother) and the ancient Greek word ‘nanna’ (aunt). …
Scotland has become the first country in the UK to make it a criminal offence for parents to smack their children. The bill, introduced by the Scottish Green party MSP John Finnie, and supported by the SNP government, was backed by 84 votes to 29. In England and Northern Ireland, parents are allowed to use …
Recently 90% of British Airways’ 4,300 pilots started a long-threatened strike. Almost all of BA’s 1,700 flights had to be cancelled and around 200,000 people had their travel plans disrupted. The first pilots’ strike in BA’s 45-year history has arisen over a dispute about pay: BA had offered its pilots an increase of 11.5% over …
Soon, most of us will stop eating beef, and it won’t be because we’ll all agree with vegans that meat is murder. It’ll be due to the logic of advanced capitalism. The alternatives to meat now being developed – plant-based substitutes and vat-grown meat produced from cultured animal cells – will taste the same as …
