Grin and Bear It

Friday, 19 November 2004

The signs are there that winter is just around the corner. This morning I had to sit in my car with the engine running for five minutes to de-ice the windows after the first heavy frost, and then come lunchtime I’m accosted on the street by people in ‘funny’ costumes and day-glo wigs demanding money [...]

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Life’s Little Irritants No. 2

Thursday, 18 November 2004

One of my more trivial pleasures is the odd Polo, the mint with the less fattening centre. You can see that I’m easy to please, but an innocent pack of Polos also has it within itself to really tick me off.

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Nanny State

Wednesday, 17 November 2004

Following the ban on smoking, the ban on fox-hunting and the ban on junk food advertising, some patients are now being banned from smoking at home, at least when the nurse calls. On a lighter note, there is a very funny article in today’s Telegraph by Oliver Pritchett about the world’s first nanny state, the [...]

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Escalation Policy

Tuesday, 16 November 2004

Have you ever noticed how much more difficult it can be to negotiate a broken escalator than a moving one? I know I do — suddenly putting one foot in front of the other is no longer natural and something you have to really concentrate on, and it seems the more you concentrate, the harder [...]

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Umpteenth Way

Tuesday, 16 November 2004

There is a warm glow around the UK that now that smoking is to be banned — in ‘enclosed spaces’ — ‘where food might be prepapred’ — neither of which is defined, and which will take another four years to frame into legislation and implement. Meanwhile, ‘backward’ Bhutan sorts it out by Christmas.

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Welfare State

Tuesday, 16 November 2004

In the Welfare State We’re In, James Bartholomew argues that there wasn’t a need for the NHS to begin with. His basic premise is that the pre-NHS health system work perfectly well and we shouldn’t have changed it.

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Being British

Monday, 15 November 2004

There is an excellent article in today’s Telegraph by Philip Johnston on what it is to be British following a worldwide survey sponsored by the Royal Society:

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Eid-ul-Fitr

Monday, 15 November 2004

It was Eid-ul-Fitr yesterday, the Muslim celebration to mark the end of Ramadan. As usual there were problems on Wilmslow Road in Manchester with young Muslims driving at breakneck speed, sounding their horns, steroes blasting and hanging out of car windows.

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Age Shall Weary Me

Sunday, 14 November 2004

“I now have the definitive list of the stars who will appear in the latest Band Aid recording,” burbled the BBC reporter from outside Air Studios. “And I can tell you it is literally a who’s who of pop music.”

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