Tim Worstall

There are books on our shelves we haven’t read and doubtless never will, that each of us has probably put to one side in the belief that we will read them later on, perhaps even in another life. The terrible grief of the dying as they realise their last hour is upon them and they [...]

[Read more →]

It’s fairly standard practice that over time good little phrases, sayings, witticisms, get attributed to the wrong people. As who actually said what to whom disappears into the mists of history it’s as if there’s a form of gravitational force attracting the attribution of this or that to just one or two historical figures. Which [...]

[Read more →]

For those of you with Facebook accounts, please go and like this: http://www.facebook.com/pages/Stephen-West/214360245248176?sk=wall Now for the favour: once a “fan” page gets at least 25 likes, you get certain extras from Facebook, such as a custom name. If you have a Facebook account, I’d like to ask you to click on the above link, and [...]

[Read more →]

22 Portnoy’s Complaint by Philip Roth A defining moment in Jewish American literature now most famous for a masturbation scene featuring a piece of liver. Disappointingly, this is not as interesting as it sounds.

[Read more →]

I get a rather nice review of the book in the Galveston “Daily News”. Many of Worstall’s conclusions are contrary to the conventional wisdom, but Worstall arrives at them by starting with the positions presented by major environmentalists. He then pares away the demonstrably wrong. Next, he starts with the solutions postulated by environmentalists and [...]

[Read more →]

So, can I now say that it’s hit the best seller lists? Amazon Bestsellers Rank: #8,878 in Books (See Top 100 in Books) #10 in Books > Business & Investing > Economics > Natural Resources #20 in Books > Nonfiction > Government > Public Policy

[Read more →]

To carry on the argument from the Spirit Level Delusion young shaver Mr. Snowdon has made available the lastest chapter on the intertubes. Here. Well worth the read.

[Read more →]

Some stuff and nonsense here: Dominic Dromgoole, the artistic director of the theatre on the South Bank of the Thames, was astonished when he was told that he would have to pay the monarch royalties for his planned Easter performances of extracts from the King James Bible. “I couldn’t believe it,” he tells Mandrake. “It [...]

[Read more →]

Yes, the book, the book, it’s now well over a million! That’s err, well over one million on the US Amazon’s best seller list. Then again, it’s only been available from US Amazon for a day so far and they’ve only three left in stock, so get in early.

[Read more →]

So, we have an innovative product–a mini-book that will sell for just $4–to tell us that we have stopped coming up with valuable innovative products.

[Read more →]

Officials at UK Trade and Investment, the Whitehall body that flies the flag for British business abroad with a little help from the Duke of York, have been instructed to burn through a spare £1m. Sir Andrew Cahn, the quango’s chief executive, sent an email to staff saying that the Foreign Office had failed to [...]

[Read more →]

Dick King-Smith has died. However many times I see it I still roar with applause at the end of Babe: and there has been known for there to be a manly glisten in the corner of an eye or two. Even if that’s the only thing one manages in life (which most certainly was not [...]

[Read more →]

Striking out the word nigger every time it appears in Huckleberry Finn is a kind of ethnic cleansing, a pretence that in the land of the free no one referred to black people by a demeaning term once the Civil War had been won. For while the novel was written well after the Civil War [...]

[Read more →]

Thanks to the intervention of one Dr. Alan Gribben, American kids will no longer be racist after reading Mark Twain’s Adventures of Huckleberry Finn and timorous teachers will now feel comfortable assigning a book that once featured 219 instances (according to Gribben) of the word “nigger.” Gribben’s new edition of Huckleberry Finn will excise all those [...]

[Read more →]

At the end of the second world war, when the iron curtain came down to isolate Istanbul from the rest of Europe, Turkey was behind the iron curtain, was it? Odd the Soviets let it become a NATO, not Warsaw Pact member really. Andrew Finkel is the author of the forthcoming book Turkey: What Everyone [...]

[Read more →]

Well, actually, no, he’s not. Firstly of course he’s trying to raise £300,000 and the fees to get listed will be £250,000 or so (and a goodly chunk per year thereafter as well). So it’s an insane decision to start with. More than that though: “I emailed the CEO of the LSE, but no official [...]

[Read more →]

Wonder how many people will receive this Amazon email today? More importantly, how many might act upon it? Are you looking for something in our Business, Finance & Law Books category? If so, you might be interested in these items. Chasing Rainbows: Economic Myths, Environmental Facts Climate: the Great Delusion (Independent Minds) The Rational Optimist: [...]

[Read more →]

A reasonable review from the very much pro-climate change side.

[Read more →]

Amazon review of it: This noisy polemic is by Tim Worstall, member of the Adam Smith Institute, press officer for the UKIP and commodity trader. He’s not a climate scientist, so it’s safe to ignore him. Except… he’s an economist, and a good one. And here he examines the recommendations of the global warming lobby [...]

[Read more →]

It was the most enjoyable couple of hours I had last night.

[Read more →]