This blog was inspired by a tweet from Jack Monroe, written in the context of the rise of hate speech on twitter, particularly anti-semitism. This is really a neat restatement of Marx’s great opening to the 18th Brumaire: Hegel remarks somewhere that all great world-historic facts and personages appear, so to speak, twice. He forgot … Read more
The English language is full of loan words from Hindi and other languages from the Indian sub-continent. Shampoo, Veranda, Bungalow, Pyjamas, Bangle, Dinghy, Dungaree, Thug. Anyone who has Indian relatives will have this pointed out to them regularly. One of the most commonly used Hindi loan words in English is loot. Derived from … Read more
As a partial follow up to my last blog I wanted to share some data on HIV/AIDs reporting in the USA, just to give a perspective on how hard it is to actually get a grip on the data. This is from the CDC HIV Infection Report 1989: “All 50 states and the District of … Read more
I don’t often write about healthcare, despite spending a long time working for the NHS, and even longer drinking cocktails with Doctors. I even had the office next to the Chief Medical Officer for a while. His office was warmer and had sofas, but his cocktail skills were mediocre. One of the most exciting stories … Read more
I met Paddy MacAloon from Prefab Sprout today, in the food hall at Fenwick. He looks like Gandalf. As well as being one for the greatest song writers of the 80s he had a rather cool looking man bob, which as a young man I decided to copy. The 80s man bob hasn’t aged … Read more
No posts this week due to urgent trip to DisneyLand Paris.
I’m on a panel discussion tomorrow about start-ups and newly established businesses. This is what I will be saying…… There were 3 stages of being scared that I went through when I started up my current company. Firstly I was scared because I didn’t know what I wanted to do. I kicked around lots of … Read more
