Sacrilege
On the train on Thursday evening, when I went for a drink in Hampstead, the young lady next to me was highlighting texts in her bible with a pink fluorescent market pen.
In my view to deface any book in such a way is sacrilege.
Up The Organisation
Sometimes we forget those in the past, who did things well and whose words should be read by anybody, in government, management or business.
Such a person was Robert Townsend, who wrote the classic book on management, Up the Organization: How to Stop the Corporation from Stifling People and Strangling Profits (J-B Warren Bennis Series)
The book has now been republished and is probably more relevant today, than when he wrote it over thirty years ago.
The Ghost
I’ve seen a lot of great footballers play, both on the television and when I’ve gone to the match.
But as someone who saw him perhaps a dozen times in my youth, there are none who can compare with John White, nicknamed The Ghost by Tottenham fans.
The son, who never met him, Rob, has just published a book about his father called The Ghost of White Hart Lane: In Search of My Father the Football Legend
One thing that seems to be missing in all the stories of John White, is any description of his funeral. I seem to remember reading at the time, that over 100,000 people were on Tottenham High Road as the procession passed, with fans climbing on lamp-posts to get a view. We think that this behaviour didn’t happen until Diana died, but was her funeral just returning to the accepted norm.
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Sicilian Avenue
This used to be one of those places that pre-Internet, computer programmers used to go to get their books at an excellent computer book-store.
Sicilian Avenue, Holborn
The Sicilian Avenue was built about a hundred years ago as a pavement cafe area and as the photograph shows it is currently being refurbished. It would make a very appropriate location for a Carluccio‘s, but I suspect that the premises will be too small for them.
Giving Away My Gluten-Free Cookery Books
Over the years I’ve been given a lot of gluten-free cookery books, as people think that these are an easy present for a man who lives alone, who is a coeliac.
Most have gone into the cupboard and have never been used more than once. If I need a recipe it’s usually because I’ve got some ingredients and want to cook all of them together, so I just use Google. That’s how I found the recipe for Dundee lamb chops.
So now all those I’ve never used more than once are going down the Oxfam shop in Dalston.
One thing I am going to do is put a pad computer on the kitchen wall.
The Devil Would be Proud of Me!
I’ve just found a whole box of bibles in the loft. They went straight in the skip!
The only religious book I’ve kept is a Protestant Dictionary. It’s the funniest book you’ll ever read!
The Devil would be proud of me!
Book Burning
It is being reported that a fifteen-year-old girl has been arrested for burning a copy of the Koran.
My father was a printer and bookbinder and to me, all books are to be treasured and not defaced or burnt in any way. Perhaps, when a book has been fully read, it should be passed on, but only in the last resort, should it be burned and then to do something positive like generate heat.
So the girl was wrong in what she did and arresting her for what was probably a childish act, will only encourage others to do similar things.
We need a lot more tolerance and common-sense.
Especially in these days, where we have had the Sunningdale and Milton Keynes murders and the Derby sex attacks to keep the Police busy, with more much serious problems that could be considered to a racial dimension.
Complexity is Fraud
PJ O’Rourke is another favourite author of mine. He said the title of this post and it is a nice simple quote on Radio 5, this afternoon, whilst discussing his new book, Don’t Vote: It Just Encourages the Bastards
You could argue that the quote is the corollary of Occam’s Razor, which states that the simplest explanation is most likely the correct one.
He also said this about the American healthcare system, “When I go in for my tennis elbow, I’m paying for someone else’s gunshot wound.”
Matt Ridley on Shale Gas
Matt Ridley is one of my favourite authors. I first read his book,Genome: The Autobiography of a Species in 23 Chapters
He has written an article for the Times today about extracting gas from shale rock and how it could solve the energy gap.
Here’s a couple of paragraphs.
Whether Mr Huhne likes it or not, a dash for gas is coming. What’s more, it is almost all good news. The discovery of how to exploit huge global reserves of gas encased in shale rock is causing epochal change in the energy scene. Shale gas is like any other gas except that it is everywhere: from Poland to Pennsylvania, from Queensland to Sichuan. There is even some in the Wirral and the Weald, but don’t hold your breath that the Nimbys will let much of it be tapped.
America, where the shale gas revolution began, has 50 years, probably more, of increasingly cheap supplies. The US is not just turning away liquefied-natural-gas tankers from Qatar (hence the current low price of gas), but considering turning gas-import terminals over to exports. Shale gas is popular with those who do not like being dependent on Putins and Ahmadinejads, so unpopular with those two martinets.
I’ll add my thoughts to his on the various ways of generating electricity or heat.
- Coal – Dirty, polluting and kills those that mine it, either directly or slowly with nasty lung diseases.
- Nuclear – Clean, but unloved by the greens and many of the general public.
- Wind – Loved by the greens, but unsightly, very inefficient and needs to have some form of backup generation.
- Solar – Alright in the Sahara, but problematic elsewhere.
- Oil – Works, but too valuable for other purposes to burn.
- Tidal – Expensive and unpopular.
- Gas – Clean, less than half the CO2 of coal and doesn’t need unsightly overhead lines, as you can distribute the gas by hidden pipes.
So as Ridley says gas from shale has a lot going for it.
I agree for now! But who’s to say something even better won’t come along in a couple of years. Never underestimate the ingenuity of the human mind and the politician’s ability to always look up the backside of a gift horse, rather than check the important parts, like the legs, heart, lungs and temperament.
A Christmas Present for the Woman in Your Life!
I had a well-educated lady round for lunch today and she saw the book below on the counter.
Lise Meitner: A Life in Physics (California Studies in the History of Science)
In my view it is one of the best reads, if you are interested in science between the wars and especially in Germany. It also tells the story of one of the greatest women scientists of all time; Lise Meitner.
The Anonymous Widower 