Tim Worstall

It is all obvious or trivial except…

 

 

Entries Tagged as 'Current Affairs'

On the Queen’s yacht

January 17th, 2012 · 17 Comments

Just a little thought. The Jubilee is this year. So, err, they should have been thinking about buying a yacht some 3 or 4 years ago, shouldn’t they? They do take a certain amount of time to make after all…..

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From the Department of the Blindingly Obvious

November 24th, 2011 · 6 Comments

Sting: Knighthoods are for the old Sting, the musician, says that only older people are awarded knighthoods. Yes, because you’ve got to show a bit of staying power and also reach the top of your profession. Things that, amazingly, tend to take a few decades.

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An absolutely lovely story but not for the reason you might think

November 23rd, 2011 · 5 Comments

Supermarket thieves caught when getaway car has no fuel Two supermarket thieves were caught when they forgot to put petrol in their getaway car. Giggle worthy, isn’t it? But that’s not quite what happened. Rose Devlin, 59, and Denise Egan, 52, stole £400 of alcohol from Asda in Chadderton, Greater Manchester, and were all set [...]

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But this *always* happens

November 11th, 2011 · 5 Comments

In these dark days of financial apocalypse and global unrest, here’s a cheering thought: red trousers are staging a comeback. Until recently, there was a danger that brightly coloured men’s trousering might go the way of the bowler hat: a once-great British institution killed off by the scorn of the young and hip. Only the [...]

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The biggest risk to the survival of the tiger

October 22nd, 2011 · 3 Comments

The biggest risk to the survival of the tiger as a species (or if you prefer, a group of sub-species) is not, as is commonly claimed, the destruction of wild habitat. That’s the biggest threat to the survival of the species in the wild. No, the biggest threat to the survival of the species as [...]

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So telling the truth is now verboeten?

October 19th, 2011 · 2 Comments

An unnamed actress is suing Amazon.com for more than $1 million (£630,000) for disclosing her age on its internet Movie Database website and refusing to remove the reference when asked. Sigh.

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Cretinism on housing policy

September 15th, 2011 · 3 Comments

Property developers are sitting on more than 300,000 plots with planning permission for new homes, undermining the case for controversial government planning reforms. Campaigners say that the “land banks” are enough for more than two years of house building, meaning there is no need to water down current planning laws. This really is cretinism. 1) [...]

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The Unicef report on consumerism in children

September 14th, 2011 · 6 Comments

Hmm. Thereport by Unicef, the UN children’s agency, warns that materialism has come to dominate family life in Britain as parents “pointlessly” amass goods for their children to compensate for their long working hours. While parents said they felt compelled into buying more, the children themselves said spending time with their families made them happier. [...]

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David Copp

September 6th, 2011 · 27 Comments

Man goes to working fishing harbour with his kids. Man and kids see dead fish in working fishing harbour. Man complains to harbourmaster. Sigh.

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Music producer Mark Ronson has married French underwear model Josephine de la Baume

September 4th, 2011 · 4 Comments

I wonder what attracted him to her? Entirely a mystery.

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How excellent!

August 30th, 2011 · 6 Comments

Home ownership in the UK will slump to its lowest level since the mid-1980s over the next decade, leading to an “unprecedented crisis” in the housing market, the National Housing Federation (NHF) has warned. Now leave aside the fact that this report comes from the builders who are looking for handouts. The actual result is [...]

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They’ll whine about this won’t they?

August 25th, 2011 · 4 Comments

Council workers could be forced to take a week’s unpaid leave each year as part of radical plans to minimise job losses, it emerged yesterday. They’ll whine about it at the same time as they praise Germany’s reaction to the recession: making lots of people work part time for less money. It’s exactly the same [...]

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Gosh, my word!

August 23rd, 2011 · 6 Comments

According to the British Retail Consortium (BRC), 11.2 per cent of all shops on high streets and in shopping centres are vacant. Isn’t that a surprising statistic? Based on ONS experimental Internet sales series, the non-seasonally adjusted average weekly value of Internet retail sales in July 2011 was £523.4 million which was approximately 9.1 per [...]

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The last word on the riots

August 14th, 2011 · 15 Comments

No, put aside all of the wibble about root causes and listen to me. Any society, every society of 58 million, contains within it a few tens of thousands to hundreds of thousands who will happily riot given half a chance. You can call them feral rats if you like, chavs, the lumpenproletariat, whatever, but [...]

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A statement which is both true and explains a lot about the world

August 11th, 2011 · 3 Comments

The reason, I’ll warrant, is that the male distribution of ego has a right tail that stretches far into the horizon.

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And the old shall become new again

August 9th, 2011 · 1 Comment

Entrepreneur Joe Cohen explains why he’s backing Devcamp, a series of summer workshops designed to give East London students from disadvantaged backgrounds the skills to compete in a digital economy. Can’t see any reason why it shouldn’t work and plenty of reasons why it should. We’re talking about exactly the same recruiting ground that The [...]

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Makes you proud to be British, doesn’t it?

August 9th, 2011 · 7 Comments

Reports of looters queuing? If nothing else, we’ve been able to teach them that part of Britishness.

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On that police bullet

August 8th, 2011 · 51 Comments

The report is that the bullet that lodged in the police officer’s radio was actually a police issue bullet. Well, sorta. From what I’ve seen it’s a hollow point. Which is indeed what is police issue. And yes, it is illegal for most of us to get ahold of such ammunition. Except if you happen [...]

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Well, that screws the eugenics movement, doesn’t it?

August 2nd, 2011 · 5 Comments

J K Rowling, the creator of the Harry Potter novels and one of Britain’s most famous lone parents, has discovered she comes from a long line of single mothers while taking part in the BBC genealogy series Who Do You Think You Are?. Recall that what actually happened with eugenics was that those birds who [...]

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Surprise!

July 26th, 2011 · 18 Comments

Norwegian killer probably insane, his lawyer says There’s a certain obvious truth to the claim, too. “Your client claims he murdered 90 people because he’s one of the new Knights Templar?” “Correct M’Lud”. “I take it that “raving nutter” is not a medical diagnosis?” “Not normally M’Lud, no, however….”

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