Fiscal Cliff

Please, please will someone truthfully explain the 'fiscal cliff' to me? (Clearly I am not MW!)

Fun Online Polls: Working age welfare and New Year's Honours

The responses to last week's Fun Online Poll were as follows : Working age and child benefits amount to what percentage of UK's GDP?...

The Army Of Surveyor (updated)

I've done some more work on this and so have updated the original post, the main point was to show that establishing the 'site-only ...

New Years Honours in IT mixup

The Honours Committee have today had to reluctantly admit that many recipients of new years honours were the results of a test data mixup. ...

Visits still holding up nicely

Here's a screen shot of my Sitemeter page, showing total visits for the last four years, and a big "thank you" to everybody wh...

The Life of Pi, Rise Of The Guardians

Once again, Wadsworth's Inverse Law Of Film Reviews holds good. The Life of Pi got four and five star reviews, we went to watch it yest...

"Car pollution, noise and accidents cost every EU citizen £600 a year'"

Emailed in by David C, from The Guardian : The perennial complaint from drivers that they are excessively taxed has been challenged by a stu...

80% of UK Population Lack Mental Arithmetic Skills

From the ES : Almost 80% of Britons are incapable of roughly dividing £9bn by 71m, according to a new poll that shows that most people can...

Town planning: Parks

Having looked at infrastructure , let's assume that our economically rational, benevolent town-planning monarch (the idealised 'stat...

Real Estate Downfall

"Chart 8: Rental costs have also risen"

Richard linked to this speech by some Bank of England bod, who was trying desperately to prove that UK house prices are not in a bubble etc...

Queen's Christmas Message Hails Taxpaying Stars

From the BBC The Queen is to pay tribute to the nation's taxpayers in her Christmas broadcast. She will hail the "splendid year of ...

Killer Arguments Against LVT, Not (295)

David E. Cooper, himself an LVT supporter, in the comments to an article at ConHome slagging off an article which he wrote recently: Your ...

Fun Online Polls: Garage conversions and "the bloated welfare state"

The results to last week's Fun Online Poll were as follows: What do you see more often? An integral garage converted into an extra room...

Nobody move or the puppy gets it!

Splendid bit of shroud waving by the bankers in yesterday's Evening Standard : Homeowners could struggle to get mortgages under proposal...

When A Gearchange Is Born

Not in a stable two thousand years ago, but in the middle of this song after 2 minutes 20 seconds:

Killer Arguments Against LVT, Not (294)

Ben Jamin' in the comments to an earlier post : LVT is supposed to be unavoidable, what about Gypsies? I'd like to see you give them...

Best of luck for tomorrow, eh?

My personal view is that the Mayan apocalypse won't happen, but keep in touch anyway. The clue bat is that although 21/12/2012 looks vag...

Killer Arguments Against LVT, Not (293)

Over at ConHome , an anonymous author couldn't even be bothered to think up some new and original KLN's, so he goes for a couple of ...

"Bavarian-style Christmas markets"

The Daily Mash did an article recently pointing out how pointless and depressing these are. Now, you may think that something got lost in t...

We're doing our bit for global warming

Here's what the gas/electricity company sent us to cheer us up at Xmas time. I hope that once the 'planet' has warmed up a bit, ...

Reader's Letter Of The Day

I've only just got round to reading today's City AM - they edited down my original letter to its bare bones and printed it in today...

Authoritarians missing their own point, as per usual

Spotted by Bob E in The Telegraph : The Bill for Welfare Cash Card is designed to stop welfare claimants buying what Shelbrooke deems “NEDD”...

Town Planning: Terraced houses (2)

Following the comments on the earlier post , allow me to summarise thusly: Assuming - plots are 9 yds wide and 36 yards deep - the house has...

Athletes 'healthier' than TV chefs

From the BBC : Prominent TV chefs are less healthy than footballers and Olympians, Newcastle University researchers say. Jamie Oliver, Lorra...

They asked for it

Douglas Carswell muses on how the internet and the concept of licensing "intangible assets" enable companies to avoid paying taxes...

Darcey Bussell has triangular nostrils

Going off on a tangent

From The Evening Standard : Environmental health inspectors have been told to take a hard line on burgers that are not fully cooked through,...

Delightful Headline Of The Day

From The Evening Standard: Spending on public toilets slashed

Daily Mail on top form!

From The Daily Mail *: A troubled 20-year-old loner with a history of autistic behavior is the monster behind a horrific shooting at a Conne...

Fun Online Polls: Government spending & Integral garages

Thanks to everybody who took part in last week's Fun Online Poll : Who gets the most cash from the UK government? Welfare claimants and ...

Town Planning: Terraced houses

Two huge advantages of terraced housing over semi-detached or detached housing are as follows: 1. You don't absolutely need to lock your...

Killer Arguments Against LVT, Not (292)

Over at Lib Dem voice, Joe Bourke is broadly in favour of LVT as opposed to other forms of taxation, but he advances this KLN : 3. LVT [can ...

Killer Arguments Against LVT, Not (291)

Paragraphs 3.16 to 3.23 of the CPRE's report on "property taxation" of 2005 are all fairly positive about LVT, then we get in...

More Xmas Gear Changes! Four for the price of one!

Tommy Steele's version of "Must be Santa" from 1960 has at least four semi-tone gear changes in it, the first verse starts in ...

Top tips if you're thinking of going on a sailing cruise

You can pay £1,000s for this : Plague ship passengers return home to describe hell of 'vomit-strewn corridors' and how the sick were...

Apparently "aluminium" never caught on in the USSR

From The Daily Mail : Thank you for flying Soviet airlines: The vast airplane graveyard in Russia where 9,000 giants of the sky have been le...

Slightly Bizarre Reader's Letter Of The Day

From City AM's Rapid Responses : [Re: Decline in homeownership is the result of bonkers red tape, yesterday] Unfortunately, the housing ...

Town planning: Infrastructure

NB 1: What I write here may seem blindingly obvious, but sometimes is worth restating what everybody already knows and takes for granted and...

Theatrical dry cleaners & eye-watering parking charge increases

I spotted a delivery van today bearing the name Upstage: Theatrical Dry Cleaners . I bet they are sick and tired of people who turn up for a...

"They own land, give them money - BUT GIVE ME A BIT AS WELL PLEASE!"

There's a splendid summary on David Ireland's blog* of some of the hundreds of millions of taxpayers' finest which the UK gover...

A lot of people will have been wrestling with this theological dilemma

From The Daily Mail : In a 2008 interview with the paper headlined 'Aliens are my brother' [Father Jose Funes, the Vatican's top...

Car Attack

Continuing my occasional series . Hampshire, 10 December 2012 : A speeding driver smashed his £100,000 supercar into a fence and destroyed a...

Killer Arguments Against LVT, Not (290)

We've got ourselves a real f-ing smart arse over at Liberal Conspiracy : ... the poorest still have to pay rent don’t they? And who do y...

[Beyond satire] "We're all in this together"

From the BBC : Hector Sants, the former chief executive of the Financial Services Authority, is joining Barclays bank. He has been given a n...

"Executives who masterminded £1 trillion deception of young and vulnerable people jailed for land banking fraud"

From The Daily Mail : The directors of Britain's largest home building companies have become the first in Britain to be jailed for land ...

There's an app for that.

From Cybercrimesunit.com : A woman who tried to unlock a stolen iPhone unwittingly took her own photo. An app on the phone then automaticall...