Readers with long memories may recall the brief, inglorious UK fuel shortage of a few weeks ago, which was mostly caused by the rush to refuel for fear the pumps would run dry. Some petrol stations imposed a limit on how much you could buy — say, £25 of fuel and no...
It’s probably not a good sign when a nation’s leader is deflected from hosting a vast global summit to deny that his country is corrupt. But it underlined how far Boris Johnson’s efforts to shield his disgraced ally Owen Paterson have backfired. Paterson has been...
I don't think it's too early to provide a list of some of the best books about the pandemic - several of these books, in fact, were written before Sars-Cov-2 ever made the leap to humans. Covid-19 by Debora Mackenzie came out very early in the crisis and some of it...
“We are not going back to the same old broken model with low wages, low growth, low skills and low productivity, all of it enabled and assisted by uncontrolled immigration.” — Boris Johnson, October 6 “British meat producers have begun sending carcasses to the EU for...
Now we live in the substack era, I thought I'd share a few newsletters I enjoy receiving... Admittedly, the line between newsletter and RSS feed is rather blurred (and personally I like to consume things via RSS when I can). But here are a few recommendations... David...
In these polarised times, one truth can be relied upon to unite the British commentariat: Christmas letters are ghastly. Writing in Country Life magazine, Kit Hesketh-Harvey advised being “alert enough to shake the card out directly over the recycling bin”. The late...
I'll admit, this is a somewhat arbitrary mix of podcasts that are noteworthy because they are particularly wonderful, noteworthy because I feel they are underappreciated, and noteworthy because they are new. Still - they are all free, and truly we live in an age of...
A friend recently wrote to me agonising over an ethical question. He was pondering a long-haul trip to see his family but was all too aware that the flight would have a huge carbon footprint. Could the journey possibly be justified? I suggested that my friend find out...
Ananyo Bhattacharya, The Man From the Future - A biography not only of the genius's genius, John von Neumann, but also of von Neumann's ideas and influence, which are nearly impossible to exaggerate. Serious and brilliantly-written. David Bodanis, The Art of Fairness...