The Risk-Takers Are Back. What Could Possibly Go Wrong?

Posted on September 1, 2026

I read the latest offering from the Conservatives today and, for a brief moment, wondered whether I had accidentally stumbled across a newspaper from about 1987. Lower taxes. Drill for oil. Slash red tape. Cut employment rights. Back the risk-takers and wealth creators. An “economic revolution”, apparently. Revolution? Haven’t we already tried most of this? Because unless I’ve completely misunderstood the last 40 years, ...

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The Joy of Not Knowing Everything

Posted on August 19, 2026

A degree in economics, maths, physics and bionics Today I learnt why some trees start turning brown during a prolonged heatwave. It turns out that it isn’t an early autumn at all. Under severe heat and drought stress, some trees effectively start shutting down parts of their leaf system. They reduce water loss, chlorophyll breaks down, leaves brown and some are eventually sacrificed altogether. It’s a survival mechanism. I didn’t ...

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Water, Water Everywhere. Except Where We Actually Need It

Posted on August 14, 2026

I was speaking to an old mate of mine, Gwylim, last night. He works for the Kennet & Avon Trust, so he knows a thing or two. Britain’s rivers are in trouble. big trouble. We can keep pretending the present system just needs another stern letter from Ofwat, or we can start treating water as the national infrastructure it actually is. There is a peculiar argument that appears whenever anyone suggests taking Britain’s water companies ...

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Rod Liddle: A National Treasure, Apparently

Posted on August 6, 2026

The Miraculous Conversion Death does strange things to people’s memories. Since Rod Liddle died, Britain appears to have discovered that it secretly loved every word he ever wrote. People who presumably spent Sunday mornings carefully preserving his columns in leather-bound volumes have emerged from everywhere to tell us that he was fearless, brilliant, hilarious and, naturally, a national treasure. It has been quite a transformati...

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Why Climate Change Deniers Don’t Actually Deny the Climate

Posted on July 27, 2026

I’ve been doing a bit of reading into why some people refuse to accept climate change, and it turns out the answer is a bit more complicated than assuming they failed GCSE Science and have been quietly pissed off about it ever since. The evidence suggests that, for many people, rejecting climate change has surprisingly little to do with the climate. It’s about people. The Inconvenient Inconvenience Accepting climate change often ...

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