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Continue reading →: Truth and illusion in Vegas
I don’t know why, but the Venetian Hotel in Las Vegas makes me sad. It’s a tribute, in its way, to the most beautiful city in the world but something about it is troubling. Imagine the chutzpah of building a "Grand Canal" on the first floor. Very Vegas. It would…
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Continue reading →: Edukashun, Edookayshen, Education
Link: Willetts must have known it would horrify Party | Dt Opinion | Opinion | Telegraph. All three comment pieces in the Daily Telegraph today were about the Tory Party and grammar schools. Alice Thomson says it best however, with these words The Tories seem to have ditched what they…
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Continue reading →: Las Vegas
I am visiting this remarkable place for the first time, attending a conference and staying in the Venetian Hotel. It is a strange combination of elegance and crassness. To get to my room from reception involves walking through a sea of slot machines, with (as far as I can tell)…
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Continue reading →: Tories to ‘sever links’ with academic selection
Link: Tories to ‘sever links’ with academic selection | Uk News | News | Telegraph. Perhaps to a shadow education secretary who went to the King Edward’s School in Birmingham and a leader of the Opposition who went to Eton College this makes some sense. Perhaps to them, embracing the…
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Continue reading →: Churches incensed by ‘stop smoking’ signs
Link: Churches incensed by ‘stop smoking’ signs | Uk News | News | Telegraph. This is a tiny story, not particularly significant in itself, but the final sentence is chilling. A Department of Health spokesman said the Government was anxious to work with religious organisations to ensure that their responsibilities…
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Continue reading →: Second Life
It may be the future of the internet; a more natural way for people to interact online. For the time being, it’s merely a weird alternative universe with six million virtual inhabitants. At times, to be frank, it seems to be populated mainly with sex-crazed teenagers and people trying to…
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Continue reading →: A Brownian Constitution
Link: Looking for a voice: The Brown Premiership ? Guthrum comments on the fact that Gordon Brown is talking of a new written constitution for the United Kingdom. That is something we certainly need. Under New Labour’s iron party discipline, Parliament has become the obedient instrument of the Executive and…
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Continue reading →: Thanks for the optimism – and the cynicism
Link: Thanks for the optimism – and the cynicism | Dt Opinion | Opinion | Telegraph. Young Sam Leith – a future Daily Telegraph editor if ever I saw one – writes very well. His is probably a more accurate summary of the Blair years than anyone older could write.…
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Continue reading →: Be afraid. Be very afraid.
Link: ‘Private’ Brown under constant scrutiny | Uk News | News | Telegraph. This article today in the Telegraph is an insight into life at the court of Labour’s Red Tsar. I would not knowingly employ such an unbalanced individual to clean my office. Thanks to the utter cowardice of…
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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My cars are just tools although I do get attached to them and have fond memories of a couple of…
I did get to ride in her and she did add cachet for me with my neighbours by being in…
It would have been easy to fulfil an open desire so why keep it secret? Surely the whole advantage of…
My secret desire was to be taken for a spin in her. Alas!
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The Last Ditch by Tom Paine 
I’m going to go millennial and rent what I need when I need it. If that doesn’t work for me,…