A Bit of Fry and Laurie

I’ve recently acquired the DVDs for the programme, “A Bit of Fry and Laurie”, which is absolutely hilarious. However, their humour can also be razor sharp, as this remake of “It’s a Wonderful Life”, featuring Hugh Laurie as Rupert Murdoch, shows:

The Politics of Waste

Commentators often try to obscure simple truths by utilising the dry vocabulary of economics. Behind all the superfluous talk of deficits and GDP figures, there is one underlying fact: we’re not as rich as we used to be, or rather, not as wealthy as we thought we were. Governments and citizens alike got caught up […]

A Touch of Lime

The economist John Maynard Keynes once famously said to a questioner, “When the facts change, I change my mind – what do you do, sir?” Similarly, I too have been subject to a political evolution since I was a young man, though it is fair to say that this development has been punctuated by particular […]

The Art of Regeneration

A new year, a new Doctor: I suppose that was the motto the programme planners at the BBC had in mind when they scheduled the new Doctor Who to take over on January 2. I must confess that I was worried about the change: David Tennant has become a television icon over the past four […]

Run into the Ground

I have been struggling to come up with a suitable metaphor for the state of the economy at present; however, I literally fell into one this morning. It’s my habit to awaken at 5 AM on weekdays to go running; as pedestrians and passing motorists tend to be unkind to joggers, this is an ideal […]

The Virtue of Silence

We live in an era that is addicted to communication. I thought about this last night whilst having a chat about talk shows: the person I was conversing with and I were disgusted that certain members of the general public are willing to divulge even the most gross personal details of their daily routine. For […]

Oh, Mandy

I’ve lately taken to referring to Gordon Brown as “Prime Minister Crackpot”. Part of it is due to his mad insistence on clinging to power when no one believes he can actually accomplish any further good. Beyond this, however, he has shown even greater signs of mental disturbance: for example, he has tried to squash […]

Health Care Conundrum

An esteemed colleague of mine challenged the blogging community to explain American healthcare and the need for its reform. This was intended, I believe, partially as a plea for more substantive online discourse given the tidal wave of frippery that has been generated recently, such as the disproportionate response to the death of Michael Jackson […]

Iran’s Ceausescu Moment

Dictatorships are a waste of everyone’s time. There is no instance in which one has been imposed and it did not prove self-defeating in the end. Hitler thought he was building a Reich to last a thousand years; it lasted twelve. Germany afterward was a devastated country which was chopped into two and has lived […]

Michael Jackson Mania

As much as I would have liked to remain on vacation, it’s impossible to escape current events in this day and age. Switch off the television, and news pursues one onto the radio. Turn off the radio, and there’s the internet. Unplug the computer, and there are the news stands. And then, even if one […]

Me And My Blog

Picture of meI'm a Doctor of both Creative Writing and Manufacturing and Mechanical Engineering, a novelist, a technologist, and still an amateur in much else.