No, not in favour of it but what does that matter? What I will be very interested to see is whether this is true: The Fawcett Society, which campaigns for equality between men and women, welcomed the move. Ceri Goddard, the chief executive, said: “There is a huge appetite among fathers to spend more time [...]
Entries from January 2010
Paternity leave
January 28th, 2010 · 6 Comments
Tags: Feminism
Well done Guardian subs!
January 27th, 2010 · No Comments
No, no, buy that man a drink! Gay scene needn’t be macho The piece itself is so hopelessly confused as to be greatly less interesting than the headline.
Tags: Newspaper Watch
Academic papers I’d like to see
January 27th, 2010 · 6 Comments
I often have little thoughts (yes, thank you at the back there, very little indeed) and then realise that I’ve not got the technical skills to even being researching whether they’re true or not. I might know roughly where the basic information can be found for example, but not know how to put it together. [...]
Tags: Academic papers I'd like to see
The Apple Tablet
January 27th, 2010 · 5 Comments
I believe it is mandatory for a blog to post about this. So, interesting question. Books for it. What’s the possibility of taking Project Gutenburg texts , encoding them correctly, then selling them on the Tablet? Doing what Wordsworth Publishing did with paperbacks a decade or more ago? Is this already being done? Or is [...]
Tags: Books
That inequality report
January 27th, 2010 · 1 Comment
Ooooh, there’s lot’s of fun stuff in here. Figure 2.6 (a) for example. After we’ve adjusted for inflation (ie, set everything in 2008 pounds) we find that from 1968 to 2008, for men working full time wages for the have (arrived at by eyeballing the graph): a) Tenth percentile risen by some 50%, from £200 [...]
Tags: Economics
Capping bank size won’t work
January 27th, 2010 · 8 Comments
A very good argument and one I cannot see a refutation of. To Anglicise it. We set maximum bank size at £100 billion. HBOS is at £99 billion. HBOS goes bust. How do we rescue bust banks? We get someone else to take them over (no, we really do not like going through proper bankruptcy [...]
Tags: Finance
More on the inequality report
January 27th, 2010 · 7 Comments
One technical point and a surmise. The technical point: Researchers analysed the total wealth accrued by households over a lifetime. The top 10%, led by higher professionals, had amassed wealth of £2.2m, including property and pension assets, by the time they drew close to retirement (aged 55-64), while the bottom 10% of households, led by [...]
Tags: Economics
James McAvoy and Anne-Marie Duff are expecting their first child
January 27th, 2010 · No Comments
Tags: Current Affairs
Oh dear….
January 27th, 2010 · 6 Comments
Maybe inequality and poverty in modern Britain are important and maybe they’re not. It’s entirely possible to argue it either way and to a large extent depends upon your Bayesian priors. However, what is essential is that when arguing you understand what it is that youre actually talking about. Which some seem not to. The [...]
Tags: Economics
Nah nah nee nah naah
January 26th, 2010 · 19 Comments
HowManyOfMe.com There are or fewer people with the name Timothy Worstall in the U.S.A. How many have your name?
Tags: The Blogger Himself
Explaining technological advance
January 26th, 2010 · No Comments
But 10,000 years of crooks who innovate so that they could continue to steal more efficiently eventually gave rise to what we call modern capitalism… Hey, works for me.
Tags: History
Jesu bleedin’ Christe on a crutch
January 26th, 2010 · 5 Comments
Raedwald has an interesting little catch. Save the Children says that the minimum income necessary to not be in poverty for a couple with two children is £626.43 a week. No, really, £626.43 a week post tax. £32,574.36 a friggin’ year. Now this isn’t entirely accurate but it is indicative*. Average household income is below [...]
Tags: Economics
Who says Britain doesn’t manufacture anything any more?
January 26th, 2010 · 2 Comments
I present to you perhaps the most fun available on four wheels: The 2010 Lotus Evora. No, not fun. Joy. Inexpressible, diamond-showering, running-naked-through-a-field-of-virgins ecstasy. Handling perfection. This is transit gloria, and it is sick. In my career as an automotive journalist, I’ve never written these words: I am going to buy one. ….A ruptured fire [...]
Tags: The English
Spot the connection
January 26th, 2010 · 6 Comments
I think we’ve done this before but why not again? The greatest piece of children’s television ever ever. And from quite possibly the greatest movie ever ever. And the connection is?
Tags: Music
Nuttin’ like it
January 26th, 2010 · No Comments
Absolutely nothing like a decent blues chug. Do note both Dave Edmunds and Steve Cropper…..and then on the other side, note the trumpeter. Who knew you could have both a perm and a mullet?
Tags: Music
Makes sense
January 26th, 2010 · 1 Comment
Tories seen increasingly as upper class, but lead over Labour widens to 11 points The English, after all, do love a toff ruling them rather than some ghastly little arriviste…..
Tags: The English
Britblog Roundup 257
January 26th, 2010 · No Comments
Tags: Britblog Roundup
Anyone know where?
January 26th, 2010 · 2 Comments
England, at training camp in the Algarve, Would be fun to pop down if I knew where to pop to……
Tags: Sport
There are worse ways of being remembered
January 26th, 2010 · No Comments
The ruddy-faced Maxwell-Hyslop’s fascination with procedure both infuriated and delighted his colleagues. He was described as “the finest procedure bore of his generation” and “one of those heroic figures in whom tirelessness and tiresomeness are combined in equal measure”. Even those who admired his knowledge sometimes wished it came in smaller doses. The rule of [...]
Tags: Law
Doesn’t matter really
January 26th, 2010 · 14 Comments
Dr Frank Drake said the phasing out of analogue transmissions from television, radio and radar was making our planet electronically invisible from outer space. While old style signals used to spread out millions of miles into outer space, even reaching some distant stars, digital transmissions are much weaker and therefore are less easy to detect [...]
Tags: Science