Blog
26 august 2010, funny, ha, ha
Friday 27th August 2010
Not much gaiety in the blog, so even better than edinburgh’s best, some of my favourite one-liners: people laughed when I said I wanted to be a comedian, they’re not laughing now (bob monkhouse); most of us have a skeleton in the cupboard, david beckham takes his out in public (andrew laurence); a good wife always forgives her husband when she's wrong (milton berle); I realised I was dyslexic when I went to a toga party dressed as a goat (marcus brigstocke); the right to bear arms is only slightly less ludicrous than the right to arm bears (chris Addison). I can’t attribute the rest: don't take life too seriously, no one gets out alive; beauty is in the eye…
24 august 2010, dipping
Tuesday 24th August 2010
Does anyone still think the western world is moving serenely out of recession ? In almost perfect harmony, the positive effects of massive fiscal stimuli around the world are bearing the fruit of modest growth, just as the loud squawking of consequential chickens coming home to roost begins to fill the air. Its the sound of inevitable and necessary fiscal contractions knocking the air out of incipient recoveries and removing the critical confidence factor that will mean consumers pare down spending, growth’s last hope. Even in america – uniquely still in the stimulus phase of the cycle due to the luxury of having the world’s reserve currency – house sales have slumped, a bad harbinger of worse news to come.…
23 august 2010, home
Monday 23rd August 2010
Just back from a good long holiday: road trip there and back wrapping round ten days camping in hungary. Started with an overnight ferry to belgium, which was great fun, and then a dash to frankfurt, where we spent a day and a night catching up with old friends and generally being nostalgic around familiar roads, playgrounds, shops and of course the palmengarten. Left with a somewhat heavy heart for stuttgart, but stayed in the most remarkable cheap hotel ever, and kids at least had a ball at legoland. Then a brief stay at salzburg, and finally journey’s end at lake balaton, where we set up camp with other half’s family and days flew by in a haze of…
1 august 2010, you’ve been quango’d
Sunday 1st August 2010
Like most oppositions, the current british government had great “bonfire of the quangos” intentions. Unusually though, it has followed through. Within days of taking office the order went out to line up bodies for rationalisation and abolition - and this has now taken wing as those much satirised quasi autonomous non-governmental organisations are being rapidly brought to the executioner’s bloc. In health, the environment and education, alphabet soups are being poured down the drain. On the economic development side, the regional development agencies and government offices (all being totally abolished) have got the most headlines, but the end of the film council last week is typical of a flood of smaller agencies going the same way. Our friends in the…
23 July 2010, the £23 laptop
Friday 23rd July 2010
After the i-pad, the i-ndia, as the world’s cheapest laptop went on sale today at just £23. In the wake of the world’s cheapest car, the tata nano, selling at just £1,200, the laptop will bring computing to tens of millions and boost india’s entire commercial space. Yet again, india shows itself as a master of frugal engineering, as the west seems intent to design only for its bloated market selling goods to the emerging economies only when they are able to indulge in wildly extravagant luxury, sometimes priced higher there than here. That’s the future though, and those that realise it now, and design for it now, and invest in it now, will reap the benefits later. Western consumerism…
20 july, 2010, hungary: miscreant or wronged ?
Tuesday 20th July 2010
As predicted after the weekend’s collapse of talks with the imf-eu, the hungarian forint has plummeted, leaving the country’s tentative recovery very much in the balance. The break came over the new government’s unwillingness to make the deep spending cuts hungary signed up to in return for a massive loan. Now, investors will now run a mile, which the negotiators probably hope will change magyar minds. Strangely though, hungary has done extremely well in taming its debt over the last year. Stranger still, a focus of the outsider’s ire is a large bank tax, which the imf states is "likely to adversely affect lending and growth". This is an odd emphasis, as surely fiscal contraction can come in the form…
17 july 2010, library 2.0
Sunday 18th July 2010
I’ve wondered about public libraries for ever. On the one hand, precious sources of knowledge, most importantly for those without access to books, internet, dvds and such at home. Others too: as a child I used to go every week with my father, and I now take my son, where he goes through shelf after shelf with fascination and awe. It should be crucial, but I’m not sure it is. So much is available from home or school, and do children go without a parent that takes them ? Libraries are expensive and their use is declining. They are often in old buildings that cost a fortune to heat and light and are never going to be redevelopment priorities. Many…
15 july 2010, four lions
Friday 16th July 2010
Rare is the comedy film I see and appreciate, but four lions I certainly did; don’t think I’ve cringed and laughed so much since borat. It is humour of the blackest type, very reminiscent of course of brass eye, the television high point of four lions’ director chris morris, which really broke boundaries in the kind of fake interview technique that borat’s earlier incarnation, ali g, made his name with on the long forgotten 11 o’clock show. All funny stuff, and I painfully laughed out loud at this one.
9 july 2010, moving the market
Friday 9th July 2010
I wax and wane on the economist’s coverage of europe: an admirable zealot on pushing forward the single market, but populist and naive in not seeming to understand the political implications of that. This week they highlighted mario monti’s excellent report on how to broaden what is the largest economic area in the world. He talks about rejoining the lost battle on services, and creating a single market in digital, low-carbon, audio-visual and healthcare. As the current successful incarnation has, this would both make the cake of european growth bigger and redistribute it to more efficient and innovative firms. However, nothing can or should happen without political consensus, and monti perceptively notes both "integration fatigue", eroding the appetite for more…
4 july 2010, the third age
Sunday 4th July 2010
In the first few years, I simply couldn’t get enough of my two boys (now 6 & nearly 9). There was so much time to play with and stimulate them, to read aloud, to lark around. I painted their walls with colourful characters, rocked them patiently to sleep, took them for long cycles on the back of my bike. There did come a time though, when, guiltily at the back of my mind, I longed for a little more “me” time, and space with my other half. Playing with the kids was no less pleasurable, but somehow the hours in the day were ever less, and the list of things I really wanted to do ever more. We began to…
29 june 2010, getting more on target
Tuesday 29th June 2010
Board meeting at the hospital today, with some pretty chunky items to discuss amidst the great changes the health service is experiencing. We spent most time though (and for the first time voted) on becoming the first english nhs hospital to introduce free car parking. We also had a lengthy presentation on health and safety, which, although vital, was a questionable use of the whole board’s time. Annual risk management training though, is a legal requirement - part of a very broad raft of such requirements. Another, I learned, is the chief executive signing a statement of intent and sending it to all staff. This smacks of some good manager somewhere introducing something, and someone in government thinking that making…
25 june 2010, loosening up
Friday 25th June 2010
I have some experience of lobbying on the chinese currency (the remninbi, or yuan), having done a lot of the analysis underpinning a groundbreaking visit of the european “trio” to bejiing in 2007, although that was but a pale shadow of the hugely successful american version. Neither though succeeded in their primary goal, which was to loosen up china’s holding down of its currency. That was finally announced this week - apparently. The reason for this is that china, sitting on vast foreign reserves and with huge investment flows risks inflation. Letting the currency rise is like releasing a pressure valve, which also encourages both growth in its own consumer market (“export to china !”) and more shopping abroad, as…