Reduce to Common Sense

My childhood friend I've known well for her whole life recently presented a BBC programme about Indian history. Sorry, but the Taj Mah...

1. Bruce Springsteen – Greetings from Asbury Park NJ 2. Sex Pistols - Never Mind the Bollox 3. Pink Floyd – The Wall 4. Jim Steinman...

Catching up on Lewis recently. Just reminded of how almost perfect have been the works of Colin Dexter, in particular the world of Detective...

It has been a long time. On reflection, I think the best practices that I thought should apply to the blogosphere, specifically the brevity,...

Not quite a top five here, more a top two and bottom three. When going to a wedding, or a christening or a baby shower or other similar ev...

In one of the most expensive and most conservative areas of London, in a small street of sober Georgian terracing, there is one house that ...

It makes me sick. People were murdered and you ARE helping to condone it. Every time you say that they were merely "mis-interpreting...

You have a small job that needs doing.  Say the replacement of a fitting in your house or car.  You have a choice of two workers.  You th...

Yesterday I got a message from a real psychic: "I am now Madame Artura, twitter psychic - send me your bank details and I will send y...

There seems to be a very basic divide in society. It defines where you stand in the political spectrum, as evident in the major split just ...

Another week another beheading another advance of IS Meanwhile the #notinmyname bandwagon repeats that these are not representative of tru...

Every new system we build is by definition new, therefore not clearly defined, therefore subject to change. During many years trying to...

I don’t think I frequent the high street as much as I used to. Many high streets are struggling. Those opinions are not really related. Nev...

Moved onto a new mobile phone contract. It is with one of the big 4 network providers but it is ridiculously cheap. How? Although the con...

Being high up. Mad. Paying good money to go up to the top of the Shard or any other tall building is mad. You can get basically the same ...

1. 1984 - George Orwell 2. The War of Don Emmanuel's Nether Parts - Louis de Berniere 3. A Fine Balance - Rohinton Mistry 4. The col...

1. The Language Instinct - Steven Pinker 2. The Ancestor's Tale - Richard Dawkins 3. A Mouthful of Air - Anthony Burgess 4. Spell It...

To avoid having to tell people if it’s a girl or a boy To hang bits of metal from the holes to accessorise To avoid possibly difficult argum...

People in our culture have been doing it for hundreds of years It has to be done anyway so just get it done as soon as possible I know a...

Got a bit of time out of the office today, finally. Five separate assessments crammed in. Met the teachers of both my children. My car had...

Halal meat is in the news again. It has been fed to us and our children without being clearly labelled by vast stores and restaurants. Yet...

Did a bit of management training last week.  Not for the first time, but it is always good to hear how each company spins it, the different ...

I went to college with Michael Gove.  He appeared to be a bit of a pompous snob even then.  But at least I thought he was literate. He at...

If a share price decreases by 10% in one year then increases by 10% in the next year then the net effect is a decrease – the investor has l...

I thought I had learned my lesson. No more investing in individual shares, even supposedly safe ones. Surely the all share index is the s...

I love America. However Britain was in, is in, will be in, Europe. The past: Over many thousands of years all of Europe has shared the same...

We need to rent out our house.  I've mentioned it before .  Below is the text that the major high street letting agency actually publish...

IPL Day 19 . After four games of the season, the Deccan Chargers were top of the league. Their main strike bowler was a skiddy slinger call...

IPL Day 18. After a whole series of close games, a very one-sided game . The Rajasthan Royals posted the highest score of the tournament s...

IPL Day 17. This is g0ing t0 be very difficult. I can't type the letter 0n the t0p r0w 0f the keyb0ard between I and P, neither upper ...

Kolkata did it again . It looked like they posted a decent score, then had chance after chance after chance to polish off the Punjab inning...

Game one , as I predicted even when they had a 100% record, like my phone when in satnav mode, the Deccans are now fast losing their Charge....

Day 14 of the IPL. Finally Ganguly gets to open the batting for the Knight Riders. Out first ball. Can it get any worse? Yes it can . Ko...

Maybe things are finally going my way. I predicted that the Chargers were over-achieving, that they didn't have the strength in depth -...

Game one , Kolkata lost again. With one ball to spare. I had hoped that the Challengers would finally mount a decent challenge, but why no...

OK, so I was wrong again, disappointed again. These are tough and demoralising times. So time to make some brave predictions. First game , ...

1. No report today. 2. It was the London Marathon. 3. I got up early to go for the one bit of sport that has become routine, though infreque...

Stats do not always tell the whole story, and neither do results. Most commentators play a game of post-justification - whoever won deserve...

Despite my prediction from Day 5 , the Royal Challengers failed to rise to the royal challenge of the Kings XI . Though , like my verdict...

Gutted. Gutted. A sad day for Kolkata. The worst kind of loss. There was hope till the very end before it was cruelly dashed. Dada did...

Thought about taking a Budget Break today. Not sure I can afford one. According to all match reports , the Deccan Chargers comfortably bea...

Isn't it ironic ... " the weather was the most important factor " in the decision to move the IPL to South Africa instead of t...

Twenty twenty was meant to be a new type of game. Not the traditional cricket we know and love. It was meant to be all about big hitting, ...

Season two of the greatest festival of cricket in the world (see here , here , here ) started today. And it got off to a great start - two ...

I was working a bit in the garden today, first time this year, cutting back the evergreen ivy that appears to have been spreading all winter...

David James has reclaimed the position of England's national goalkeeper. According to most pundits, he fully deserved it. According to ...

Firstly, an administrative point unrelated to this note. After a few random bits of spam on my last posts, fearing more now, I've final...

Watching the BBC and random musing 1. Started out in poverty in the East End of London - couldn't afford shoes 2. Worked at the Ford pl...

It's the first day of the rest of my life. I remember that exactly one year ago today, I discovered God. Though I'm not sure of th...

I work on very complicated things. See here , here , and here . But I am a very simple person. See here , here and here . That's all.

A true incident. It's been told before, but not on this site. I bought my first car as a student and somehow kept it going for about e...

For his Victorian Feast , it would have been easy (and boring) to simply cook the type of food that was actually eaten in those times, so in...

It's one year after my last note on this subject, and I went to the TFM conference again this week. It continues to surprise me just h...

Well I said I'd start on the 25 random things. So I did. I wrote them, but they aren't published yet. None of them are secret, but ...

I'm not going to list 25 random things about me. Not today anyway. But I am going to point to some ideas about that particular meme . Ho...

Not the most common name in the world, but cropped up in the news twice just within the last few days with devastating deliveries. 1. Out of...

In order to prevent violent people from inflicting violence, controversial MP Wilder Geert has been chased out of the country. BBC link . ...

Other sites aggregate good content from the web. On this blog I tend to reflect my own thoughts in my own words. That's one of the rules...

Not about my objectives for the year, I'm still considering those. My last post was a very simple one. But it was topical , posted just...