Of interest

I read a lot, anyone who has read this blog will know that. I always have several books on the go and try to have a diverse selection of subjects and authors. Being a member of the Lit and Phil in Newcastle helps enormously and during the pandemic the amount of books I have been … Continue reading The Unwomanly Face of War

I thought I’d blogged about this before but checked and cannot find anything. One of the very few advantages of the pandemic has been the need to create your own entertainment. Going out among the hoards has, at times, not been an option. Holidays and their ilk were put on hold and so it was … Continue reading The need to create

Image thanks to This is Durham We went to visit the moon over the weekend, not the real one as far as we were aware though we were unable to check the sky just in case. We went to the Museum of the Moon at Durham Cathedral. According to the website, the seven metre diameter … Continue reading A trip to the moon

Image thanks to Highways England They’re widening the AI around Newcastle, from a two lane dual carriageway to three lanes. There isn’t really enough room and so I imagine they will be narrow lanes. The problem is that it will make no difference to traffic flows.  I remember when the bypass was built. Before that … Continue reading Stop building roads

Image thanks to BBC A colleague of mine was lamenting the fact that he had bought 10 Bitcoin, way back in the day when they had very little value. He had lost the 40 character long password and had no paper copy. Though it’s money he never had he would have been sitting on a … Continue reading Vanishing Bitcoin

I’ve written before how GDP is such an ineffective measure of how well we are doing. It hides such a multitude of sins and masks huge disparities in wealth within a country. Nations can seem to be doing well by a trick of statistics or the variety of industries that they are strong in. Also, … Continue reading Measuring the health of a nation

Driving at twenty miles per hour can feel like a pain, but when you are in the middle of a housing estate with parents taking their children to school, a slower speed makes sense. Cars and children don’t mix.  Yet for some people it seems an impossible ask. Despite warning signs on the estate where … Continue reading Twenty is plenty

Image thanks to The Chronicle I’ve always been in two minds when giving money to people who beg in the streets. I am aware that some of those I pass by are part of organised gangs, yet seeing two people asleep in a doorway in the centre of Newcastle in the middle of the day, … Continue reading E-begging