A few years ago a friend of mine got lost on the internet. He had just moved to a new city to start an exciting new job when he was suspended from work for a year. He knew no-one and was lost and alone and anxious. He spent much of his time on-line … Read more
The influence of the pandemic still seems to hang over everything. I struggled with novels, and most of my favourite reads this year were collections of short stories, which could be read and returned to. I think that the mental impact of Covid will take a long time to be fully understood. These are in … Read more
In 1987 New York, was in the middle of the AIDS epidemic. Public Authorities were largely hostile to the gay community, and drugs companies were more concerned with profit than public health – Wellcome initially priced the first AIDs drug AZT at $10,000 per patient per year. The response to this indifference was the launch … Read more
I’m currently in Slovenia and Croatia, finalising the delivery of our new Whisky stills. It’s the 30th anniversary of the Yugoslavian civil war, and the horror of the 90s makes it too easy to forget what a unique country Yugoslavia was. Although Yugoslavia was part of the Communist world it followed it’s own path, equally … Read more
No. We are not increasing our nuclear arsenal, despite what you might have read. The UK has announced plans to raise the cap on it’s nuclear stockpile by 40%. This has been announced as an increase in our nuclear arsenal, but it isn’t. We have increased the maximum size of our nuclear capacity, not the … Read more
Hegel remarks…. that all great world-historic facts and personages appear, so to speak, twice. He forgot to add: the first time as tragedy, the second time as farce. Karl Marx 18th Brumaire. I get reminded of this quote on a daily basis when people make comparisons between our current age and the 1930s, in particular … Read more
This is my own personal tribute to Jive Bunny and the Master Mixers. 26 80s pop hits, all mixed together. Just work out which one is which PM me your answers or send them to jon.chadwick1@btinternet.com I’ll publish the answers and the winners tomorrow evening
In the mess of Brexit a rather good news story slipped out. DH have finally agreed a deal with Vertex Pharmaceuticals to give NHS patients unlimited access to Orkambi, Symkevi and Kalydeco, life changing drugs for Cystic Fibrosis. Just a shame it took so long. https://www.parliament.uk/documents/commons-committees/Health/Correspondence/2019-20/19-10-24-letter-from-NHS-England-cystic-fibrosis-drugs.pdf Six months ago I wrote about the rather shabby … Read more
I like knowing things. For as long as I can remember I have enjoy learning stuff, memorising lists: Prime Ministers; Acts of Parliaments; Dates of Construction of historical monuments; Bass players in The Fall. Facts. I love lists of stuff so much that Wikipedia is actually named after me. It’s full name is JonChadwikipedia, although … Read more
If you follow public policy long enough you see the same shit policies over and over again. This isn’t surprising. After a while an administration runs out of steam, runs out of ideas. They start asking Civil Servants what they should do, and Civil Servants tend to give the same advice to Ministers regardless of … Read more