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Continue reading →: The chequered flag
We have just returned safely home from the South of France. Vittoria sang her way across one and two-thirds countries without mishap. The work of Auto Palace in Cannes (merci, messieurs) was as professional and thorough as it seemed at the time. All her computerised systems functioned flawlessly. Our only…
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Continue reading →: Health and Stupidity
Link: Health and Safety prevents winding of town clock – Telegraph. I don’t buy the sincerity of the town council’s quoted regrets. How can they believe an assessment of the risk as serious of a task which has been performed without mishap for 150 years? Sometimes it seems we are…
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Continue reading →: A pit stop
Ah the joys of touring. The view is from my seat in the Maserati dealership in Cannes. Vittoria is in the rudest mechanical health but her inboard computers seem a tad confused. They report scary but non-existent faults, demand to be taken to dealers, shut down the cruise control randomly…
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Continue reading →: The Sith fall to the blogging Jedi
Link: Think tank boss resigns after Gordon Brown links criticised – Telegraph. The Smith Institute is a scam. It purports to be a charity in order to defraud the Treasury. The Treasury has cooperated because the fraud was for the political benefit of the then Chancellor, now Prime Minister. Resignations…
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Continue reading →: Idyll time
This post was a test of the Typepad gizmo for iPhone. It worked rather too well in that the photo I snapped (of the view from poolside at our resort hotel’s spa)was posted before I realised and before I could add some text! By way of explanation "Idle time" is…
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Continue reading →: Of Lyon, her most famous son and of excellence in general
Link: en – Site Officiel de la Ville de Lyon. We have hurtled through Lyon on our previous trips to the Côte d’Azur but this year we decided to take a couple of days to look around. It’s a beautiful city, straddling the rivers Saône and Rhône. It’s the…
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Continue reading →: The Witanagemot Club Awards
Link: The Witanagemot Club – News. The results are in and, despite having myself voted for Tim Worstall, The Last Ditch has been chosen by Witanagemot Club voters as the "Best ex-pat Blog". I am also chuffed to have come third in the "Best Libertarian Blog" category, behind the redoubtable…
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Continue reading →: La vie en rose
Vittoria comfortably knocked two hours off our previous North of England to Champagne record. In fairness to the late, great Claudia this could partly be attributed to the fact that we set off at 3am and were therefore around the M25 and in Kent before Londoners stirred. We caught the…
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Continue reading →: Parp! Parp!
It’s that time of the year again. My desk is cleared (more or less) and my Outlook "out of office" message has been cheerfully crafted and set. Tomorrow (Swiss airlines permitting) I shall return to England to collect Mrs Paine and Vittoria. We shall drive from the North of England…
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Continue reading →: More Time for Politics
Link: Amazon.co.uk: More Time for Politics: Diaries 2001-2007: Tony Benn: Books. The first time I remember hearing the name "Tony Benn" was in 1975. I was discussing with my father how to vote in Harold Wilson’s referendum on whether to remain in "the Common Market". This was my first vote…
THE LAST DITCH
Your blogger
Tom is a retired international lawyer. He was a partner in a City of London law firm and spent almost twenty years abroad serving clients from all over the world.
Returning to London on retirement in 2011, he was dismayed to discover how much liberty had been lost in the UK while he was away.
He’s a classical liberal (libertarian, if you must) who, like his illustrious namesake, considers that
“…government even in its best state is but a necessary evil; in its worst state an intolerable one.”
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There are many reasons they’re not passed down, Tom. The Triune code, laid out in scripture in all reputable versions…
I’ve always tried to live my life doing no wrong but life isn’t like that so you make compromised but…
Hate to tell you this, but it’s not going to end until you end it. You think people to whom…
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The Last Ditch by Tom Paine 
A little bird tweeted in my ear that it was time to come over and see how things are.