What’s Up
Last of the Liberal Lions
News today that the last of the Kennedy brothers, Teddy Kennedy has died after a long battle with a brain tumour.
Despite living in the shadows of his more famous martyred siblings John and Robert for much of his life (and with the ghost of his brother Joseph who was killed in WWII – Teddy was the only one of the four brothers to die of natural causes), Teddy Kennedy was a highly influential figure in US politics for decades.
+22
Recession solved by my bad investments
There’s been a spate of stories in the press recently, where various industry pundits are heralding the end of the recession.
In true pundit style, the sources are covering their arses by throwing in the “but let’s not get overconfident just yet” caveats, but the gist of it all, is that things are less crap than they were not so long ago.
And I reckon that’s at least partly because of me.
+29Back in Blighty
Two weeks ago today, in the wee hours of Wednesday the 13th of May, my plane touched down in Heathrow and I set foot back on the soil of Blighty for the first time in almost 6 weeks.
It’s interesting watching how news and current affairs play out around the world. In Bangkok, the news was all about the political unrest and the riots (it’s rather disconcerting to catch a glimpse of the hotel you have just left, between rioters on one side throwing Molotov cocktails and armed soldiers on the other firing rubber bullets.
+17Rant:Tesco in the Doghouse
Being away from my normal patch (on the other side of the big pond) catching up with uncles, aunts and cousins in a long-overdue reunion has been terrific.
Over a fairly sunny weekend, we ate, drank and laughed together, catching up on the news and each others’ lives, in between a couple of games of Petanque (French Bowls) and a jam session or six with one of my cousins who is learning to play guitar (left handed) and who has made impressive progress in a very short time.
+32Rant: Pharmacology’s True Colours
An article on the Beeb’s website entitled: Life: A medical condition has addressed the growing trend of psychoanalysts wanting to categorize all aspects of human behaviour as some form of abnormality.
New “disorders” (which in that annoyingly American style always seem to have a 3-letter acronym) are being “identified” on a daily basis by the psychobabble brigade, all of whom are keen to make their mark in the American Psychiatric Association ‘bible’ and then reap the material rewards from the book deals, lecture circuit tours, overpriced consulting and other pseudo-academic bollocks that invariably follows.
+28