With David Bowie, Victoria Wood, Prince and many others, there's a lot of it around. Some argue George R. R. Martin is scripting 2016; others point to more prosaic factors, like it being about the time you'd expect Baby Boomers who came to fame in the explosion of celebrity in the 60s to die off. (Although that doesn't work for Victoria Wood or ( Read more... )

What is it with double glazing companies? Chap just knocked on my door, wearing an Everest sweatshirt and wielding Everest sales literature. I start to explain that I don't buy from companies who doorstep, and he objects that he's not selling anything. Riiight, so you've come to read the bloody gas meter, then, and just happen to have picked up ( Read more... )

Here's some actual data on BMI and mortality in the UK:


( Read more... )

Further to my last post, this news story is cheering me. It turns out that life expectancy is getting better so quickly that babies born today have an evens chance of making it to 100. These extra years are likely to be healthier than people's later years are now. And - as my last post points out - things are not too shabby now, so it's an ( Read more... )

For moderately silly reasons, I was just glancing at mortality statistics from the very wonderful UK National Statistics site ( Read more... )

I misread this headline as Sartre set to win Tour de France and had a giddy moment imagining the old philosophe's corpse springing out to take the lead as the peloton passes Montparnasse.

I have a huge rant brewing about how evil tax credits are. They are the worst domestic policy enacted by any UK Government in my political memory, with the arguable exception of the Poll Tax and even then I'm not so sure. Possibly this is hyperbole but I'm very cross about it at the moment ( Read more... )

It's becoming clear that US (& British) policy on Iraq is not and has never been "stay the course".* That's just as well, because we know that there wasn't a plan beyond "get rid of Saddam", and it's kinda tricky to "stay the course" of getting rid of him once he's gone. So what are the troops up to? How can you encapsulate their challenging ( Read more... )

Bruce Schneier, all-round amazing chap, usefully points out that all this malarkey with "no liquids on planes", and the "no sharp objects except the ones you buy in duty free" isn't real security, but what he calls "Security Theater".

What I think his article is missing is that there is a legitimate need for Security Theater, or Potemkin Security, ( Read more... )

If you've heard of Terri Schiavo, you should probably also hear of the contrasting case of Tirhas HabtegirisTerri Schiavo had been in a coma for ten years and was (disputedly) in a persistent vegetative state. Her case was the subject of a huge debate about whether this was right, including legal action to the highest level and even Presidential ( Read more... )