Finally, a podcast (or is it a blogcast, since it’s on my blog?) where I’m not “reacting” to something that Olivia St Redfern has put on her Leisure Lounge series. Here are some musings about where we’re at, now we are at Level 3. Some of my friends, especially my Natcoll students from 1999–2000, […]
Tag: UK
COVID-19 stats’ update, April 16
Don’t worry, I won’t make this too regular, but as I had done some more number-crunching of the available stats during the daytime, I thought I’d share them. I’ve noticed that some countries update their test numbers on a less regular basis, e.g. France, Singapore, Sweden and Switzerland, though Worldometers now has updated ones since […]
COVID-19 infections as a percentage of tests done: April 13 update
I can cite these COVID-19 calculations (infections as a proportion of tests done) with a bit more confidence than the last lot, where many countries’ testing figures had not updated. I see the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia has released its total test numbers now, and they show a pretty good result, too. Compared to […]
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Rather locked down than living within a controlled experiment
As a dual national, I hope there’s some exaggeration or selective quoting in the Bristol Post about its report of former police officer Mike Rowland, who’s stuck in Auckland with his wife Yvonne. Apparently, New Zealand is in ‘pandemonium’ and he feels like he’s in ‘Alcatraz’. As we are most certainly not in pandemonium, […]
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Boris Johnson is hardly Churchillian
I’ve heard world leaders describe the fight against COVID-19 as a war, and there are some parallels. As any student of history knows, there was such a thing as the Munich Agreement before World War II. I’ve managed to secure the summarized English translation below. For those wondering why the UK initially thought […]
The British approach to coronavirus: by Grabthar’s hammer, what a savings
Still from AFP video I’d far rather have the action taken by our government than the UK’s when it comes to flattening the curve on coronavirus, and the British response reminds me of this 2018 post. Just because the chief scientific adviser there has a knighthood and talks posh isn’t a reason to trust […]
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Don’t give the keys to the company Twitter to just anyone
A few thoughts about Twitter from the last 24 hours, other than ‘Please leave grown-up discussions to grown-ups’: (a) it’s probably not a smart idea to get aggro (about a joke you don’t understand because you aren’t familiar with the culture) from your company’s account, especially when you don’t have a leg to stand on; […]
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History of the 2010s: a look back at the decade that was
When I first wrote a satirical look back at the decade, which ran on this blog in December 2009 (on the old Blogger service, as I was helping a friend fight a six-month battle with Google to restore his blog), it was pretty easy to make up little fictions based on reality. This one, covering […]
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Victor Billot on the 2019 UK General Election
I often find myself in accord with my friend Victor Billot. His piece on the UK General Election can be found here. And yes, Britain, this is how many of us looking in see it—like Victor I have dual nationality (indeed, my British passport is my only current one, having been a little busy to […]
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That’s not Blofeld, it’s Brofeld
I really had hoped that for the next Bond, we wouldn’t see ‘Brofeld’. I’ve never had a problem with M being a woman or Q being a nerd, but ignoring Fleming’s entire background for Ernst Stavro Blofeld in the Daniel Craig movies, and supplanting him into the Franz Oberhauser family as a foster brother […]