fieldus

From a review Graham Swift’s memoir, Making An Elephant:
But probably the most affecting essay is his recollection of fishing adventures with Ted Hughes, who showed him some of his favorite stretches of river in Devon. Swift recounts that “once, when I said goodbye to him to come back to London and made that glib and [...]

Intelligent soldiers most likely to die in battle - life - 19 December 2008 - New Scientist
Being dumb has its benefits. Scottish soldiers who survived the second world war were less intelligent than men who gave their lives defeating the Third Reich, a new study of British government records concludes.

The visionaries: Meet the men who predicted the crash - Profiles, People - The Independent
…I say listen to negative rather than positive advice. When you go to a book store there are plenty of publications telling you how to get rich, but none telling you how not to go bankrupt. To put it another way, [...]

My love-hate relationship with working in offices | Technology | The Guardian
What technology has changed is the speed and density of the links that bind external workers into the social mesh of the office. The mixture of email, instant messaging, texting and just plain telephone calls mean that a mid-range mobile phone now offers much [...]

Even a Bullingdon baronet can struggle in the rarefied air above democracy
Much has been made of Rothschild’s private nature, and he seems to have an instinctive grasp of how to turn any weaker personality traits - perhaps even catagelophobia, the fear of being ridiculed - to his advantage, cultivating an air of quiet steel, rather [...]

Ken Baldwin, (c) Chronicle / Christina Koci Hernandez

Discussion of Baldwin, the bridge and the causes of suicide in The San Francisco Chronicle.

Parliament climate change protesters threaten further disruption - Telegraph
A new coalition of groups known as the Climate Suffragettes, which includes stalwarts of middle England the Women’s Institute as well as more extreme environmental movements Climate Rush and Plane Stupid, are calling for reform of environment policy, a halt to building more coal fired power stations [...]

The labour market is looking unchanged on Chichele Road in north London. There were around 40 men looking for casual work at 7.45am, Tuesday 9 October.

Waiting for work.

Ready-Made Rockefeller - NYTimes.com

The man with the eccentric accent, the tantalizing hints of family fortune and the impressive conversational knowledge of everything from physics to art to the stock market is actually Christian Karl Gerhartsreiter, who grew up in Germany, came to the United States as a teenage exchange student and never left, not even [...]

Catherine Townsend: Sleeping Around - Catherine Townsend, Columnists - The Independent
…my passion for British men was reignited this week after I agreed to a blind date with an American. “This guy is a writer too, and he’s really emotionally aware,” my friend Victoria said.
I should have known that this would be the death knell for [...]