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Blog Post
May 05, 2023
There’s something just perfectly British about having local elections just 48 hours before an obscenely wealthy 70-something puts on a hat made from plundered jewels, sits on an ancient bit of granite and becomes King. The local elections are just about as pure a form of democracy as possible, in wh...
Blog Post
April 28, 2023
Earlier this week, my sister sent a message to the family chat which just read “Harry Belafonte”. At first, it hadn’t occurred to me that he might have passed away (surely, he was immortal?), and I just assumed she was randomly thinking about what a genius and a brilliant man he was, so I responded ...
Blog Post
April 21, 2023
John Mortimer’s third autobiography (he was very long-lived; after each one he found he went through a lot of unexpected life, hence the trilogy) opens with the reflection that the marker of elderliness is the moment you realise you cannot put on your own socks. I think the Rubicon of middle-age is ...
Blog Post
April 14, 2023
I’ve been away for the last couple of Fridays, so this week there is an absolute mass of material to get through this week. I’ve been brutal in editing it down: there are probably ten times as many interesting bits of esoteric statistics, development economics and political commentary from the last ...
Blog Post
March 24, 2023
This week’s edition of The Chronicles of Unpacking is entitled “How much of my lifetime income was spent on all of these books, and why are there never enough shelves?” We’ve been unboxing books over the last four days, and we’re almost finished, but ran out of shelf space some time ago—a few are st...
Blog Post
March 17, 2023
A week into the house move there are definite signs of progress: we have a sofa, which has been thoroughly colonised by my son, who has mastered the art of arranging his four rather small limbs and body in such a fashion as to occupy as large a surface area as possible; the boxes have graduated from...
Blog Post
March 10, 2023
Apologies in advance if this week’s links seem somewhat truncated: we moved house this week, and between carrying various heavy items up and down (not least my son, who has been rather unimpressed with the whole process) and unpacking (a process somewhat slower than downloading a photo on a dial-up ...
Blog Post
March 03, 2023
I’m writing the links from my in-laws’ place in Northumberland this week. There are many joys of being out here: having a woods just behind the house to take my son for a walk in, good food and beaches and most of all, the wildlife. Previous visits have been enlivened by pine martens, weasels and he...
Blog Post
February 24, 2023
Roughly seven years ago, the UK voted to leave the European Union (I simultaneously cannot believe it was that long ago and cannot believe it was so recent, which is somehow apt). I remember the next day clearly: it was a Friday and a colleague of mine entered the office with a stream of extremely u...
Blog Post
February 17, 2023
Last week’s email included a link about the hellscape that is Anglo-American childcare provision, and prompted some really wonderful emails from readers who have navigated it, with varying levels of success (as an aside, I always love it when I get any emails about the links I send. Economics doesn’...