20th Century
Walking in Memphis
I guess you know this is a song. The Cher version is crap but Marc Cohn’s one in the early 90s was great Anyone who has heard of, let alone been, to Memphis will associate [more…]
Month: August 2026
Economics
Bonds and how they work
This is likely to be very boring, but I’m going to try to explain how the bond market works and why so much attention is paid to the 10 year gilt level. Initial primer Bonds [more…]
21st Century
Postcard from Mumbai
After a long, hot site visit in Panoli, a small industrial town in Gujarat, the traffic on the main Ahmedabad to Mumbai highway was even more hideous than usual. It was the last day of [more…]
Labour
Miatta Fahnbulleh
Four men are in custody. £44 million is missing. And the woman who oversaw it all just got promoted to Energy Secretary. This is not politics. This is not incompetence. This is institutional decay wearing [more…]
18th Century
Nicholas Wood: The man who wrote the book on railways
He taught Robert Stephenson his trade, judged the Rainhill Trials, and wrote the first proper book on railways, the one that engineers across the world actually used. Not all of us can be gallivanting around [more…]
America
Ordo ab Chao
Ordo ab Chao, the motto of the 33rd degree of Freemasonry, is the art of bringing order from chaos. The connection will become clear pretty soon in the article. Of course if the Hackney Abacus [more…]
Animals
Larry’s Diary, Week Three Hundred And Thirty-Six
Monday Good morning, my happy readers, and welcome to another week of “stuff” from your intrepid cat reporter. The sun was back to being rather warm again this morning, and I hear another heatwave is [more…]
Going Postal
Marking Your Homework
Rules Pay attention, Puffins! Your last homework entries were excellent — well done. Now it’s time for the next challenge. Before you put pen to paper (or rather fingers to keyboard), here’s a reminder of [more…]
Fiction
Bombs and Betrayal, Chapter Twelve
Simon Pegson was dressed in grey prison clothing, he was around fifty, had once been fit, possibly a rugby player, but a lot of the muscle had now turned to fat. Jane stood away from [more…]