This piece by Jonathan Freedland offers the classic liberal-minded analysis of the Israel/Hamas conflict: Both sides point at the other with equal vehemence, a Newtonian chain of claimed action and reaction that can stretch back to infinity. So perhaps a more useful exercise – especially for those who long for […]
One of my theories of personal advancement has things thus. Imagine a room packed full of inflated balloons. One of the balloons has the ability to self-inflate. It does so. It expands. The other balloons squeeze themselves in to accommodate this growing companion. Some may eventually pop under the growing […]
Back in November I wrote about diplomatic negotiating, including a passage on the Middle East: In the Middle East there is an existential negotiation going on over the very existence of Israel. Either Israel exists, or it doesn’t. The Iranians under current management are contriving to give the impression that Israel […]
A company asks you to buy them out for $15m. No way! So you end up buying them some years later – for over $6 billion. Probably a lesson in that somewhere.
Remember former Ambassador Craig Murray’s problems in getting a publisher for his new book because it might attract a heavy libel writ? He is pressing on by publishing it on/via the Internet. Let the legal fun and games begin.
Here is a letter I am planning to send to a competent newspaper Agony Aunt, if I can find one. I am asking for your advice. I believe that the heart of both moral and practical wellbeing lies in defining a close, evident link between good behaviour and good outcomes, […]
A significant UK court ruling allows agreements reached during marriage on the disposal of assets in the case of divorce to be legally binding. But not agreements reached before marriage. This reads oddly: Legal experts say the important ruling will lead to many couples deciding how to settle their financial […]
Another row between Moscow and Kiev over energy prices and supplies: Crippled by the financial crisis, Ukraine is struggling to pay off hundreds of millions of pounds in debt for Russian gas it bought earlier in the year. At the same time, Ukraine – which carries 80 per cent of […]
You know that things are moving into a New Phase at home when your nine year old daughter uses her laptop to access Yoobot (I’m Professor Gunter von Gunter. Hatch your Yoobot now. JaHa!), then goes on to Google Images to download from the Internet a fatuous picture of her beloved […]
A reader responds to my posting on Bosnian war deaths: When you will realise that in Bosnia (Yugoslavia) occurred a civil war, and that is caused by the large number of victims and mass slaughter of Serbs by Croats and Mislimans during the Second World War (Serbs have never forgotten that […]
