We are all living longer. Life expectancy is increasing year on year. This has become such a ubiquitous news story over the last few years that no-one ever seems to question the concept of an ever ageing population. While I am not disputing that there has been an increase in life expectancy I am sceptical … 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
Before I start I would like to make it clear that my Great Aunt Margaret had nothing to do with the Bishop of Litchfield or any kind of strip-o-grams, although all of these people will appear in this blog. I wanted to write this after reading a series of newspaper articles about the increase in … Read more
We had our first ever meeting last week with a venture capitalist. He was an impressive chap, knowledgable in the way that a professional investor should be. I learnt a lot about investing just from one meeting, although not enough to decide whether Venture Capitalist should be capitalised or not. Most people don’t ever meet VCs, … Read more
My mate David requested I do something on Public Sector Borrowing. As it happens my daughter Lily is doing A level History at Durham Johnston Comprehensive. David and I did the same A level at the same school, but 30 years earlier. I thought it might fun to do a short history of public debt since … 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
When I say the rest of us, I mean older people. I am 49, which is well beyond the cut off for being young. I had 2 experiences this week which were in such stark contrast that I found it hard to reconcile them. The first was the announcement by Theresa May that we would … Read more
Anyone who reads the research papers and speeches from the Bank of England will have come across loads of scary reports about the terrible state of productivity in the UK. All of the data shows that the UK lags behind most of our competitors in output per capita – British workers are less productive than … Read more
No posts this week due to urgent trip to DisneyLand Paris.