It was Robert Louis Stevenson (among others) who noted it was better to travel than arrive. Having flown with Ryanair, I would beg to differ. However, the disappointments of budget airline travel, the Pringles costing more than the ticket and the embarkation scrum resembling a scene from ‘Zulu’, pale into insignificance when considering the journey…
On numerous occasions we have referred to how the precarious state of the global economy is, in no small part, the result of ‘experts’ having a bit less expertise than either they thought or indeed, others attributed to them. A single currency for wildly differing economies? Check. Levels of sovereign debt that, realistically, can never…
It is comforting to know that high street financial institutions just want to hold our hands and guide us through life’s trials and tribulations. NatWest delivers ‘helpful banking’ and Lloyds is with us ‘for the journey’. Santander and its customers are ‘together’ while Halifax offers ‘a little extra help’. The warm fuzziness tends to disappear…
Well, there has been plenty going on. The country overwhelmingly rejected a change to the voting system, U.S. government debt was earmarked for a potential downgrade by the rating agency, Standard & Poors, while Gordon Brown fancied running the International Monetary Fund (IMF). To cap it all, Leeds United failed to make The Championship play-offs.…
It is all too easy to assume that individuals in positions of power know what they are doing. I recently saw an anonymous quote which opined that when you are young, you assume the world is generally organised along sensible lines. However, as you get older, you realise just how random and chaotic it truly…
It has been a miserable few weeks. Education riots, VAT at 20%, while to cap it all, Russia snaffled the World Cup. While we fielded Beckham, Cameron and Prince William for the big push, Vladimir Putin didn’t even feel the need to attend the final schmooze fest. To add insult to injury, they then sent…
When I was a boy, QE2 was the acronym used to describe a ship owned by Cunard. Now, it’s the next chapter of U.S. monetary policy. The QE2 of today refers to the second part of the U.S.’s programme of quantitative easing. For the next few months, the Federal Reserve intends to buy another $600…
In Oscar Wilde’s ‘The importance of being earnest’, Lady Bracknell tells us “… to lose one parent may be regarded as a misfortune; to lose two looks like carelessness.” Today, such bluntness would be called bullying and if done in the workplace, might give HR something to do for the entire week – or even…
It is a persistent problem. In the middle of the night, you are rudely awakened by a knock at your hotel door. Is the building on fire? Has your car been stolen? No; nothing so dramatic. It’s just a couple of strangers offering you a bag of diamonds. It happens to me all the time.…
There are well over half a million words in the English language. You might have thought that with all that choice, it wouldn’t be too difficult to make a decent stab at accurate description. Yet, curiously, modern life appears to struggle increasingly when it comes to conveying the essence of reality. Of course, there are…