Central banks and pension funds are embracing green and gold investments. “FOLLOW the money,” encouraged the shadowy figure of Deep Throat during the Watergate crisis. His words might be wise counsel today for those worried about a Trump bump in global finances. According to a report issued on June 14th by the Official…
Category: Random musings
At the quiet limit of the world
I used the research for this post as the basis for an article commissioned by 1843 Magazine, the sister publication to The Economist. The article ‘Death by Design’ will appear in the June/July 2017 edition of 1843. Dennis Barlow, anti-hero of Evelyn Waugh’s 1948 black comedy The Loved One, was as fascinated as he was appalled…
All is not butter that comes from a cow
Manufactured anger can be just as dangerous as the real thing Like the captain of a sinking ship appealing for calm at the lifeboats, Rabbi Lionel Rosenfeld tried in vain to impose order on the Kiddush; the meal celebrating the Jewish Sabbath. “Families first, families first!” he exhorted over the herring. He was either unheard…
Never mind the passage of time
Tobi Vail, former girlfriend of Nirvana front man Kurt Cobain, became a fan of the youth-targeted deodorant Teen Spirit when it was launched in America in 1991. As a joke Katherine Hanna, the lead singer of the band Bikini Kill, which also included Vail, scrawled across a wall in Cobain’s apartment ‘Kurt smells like teen spirit’….
Honoured
Edwin Weaver was probably born in 1908; we can’t be sure as it is suspected he falsified his age to enlist in the Royal Artillery in Birmingham in 1925. He volunteered for the SAS in 1943 and, after evacuating escaped POWs along the Italian coast for many months he parachuted into eastern France in August…
Rattled
25 years ago today Gerald Ratner, Chairman and Chief Executive of his family jewellery firm, made his now infamous speech in the Albert Hall in London. Speaking at a conference of the Institute of Directors to a group of 5000 business leaders, he mused on the reasons for his impressive record. As he had taken over…
addingtonWord 