Apple made a point at its product launches this autumn to emphasise its green credentials. But how green is Apple really? I just treated myself to a new Apple iPad Air (not least to write my blog posts) from my local electronics store in Switzerland, and since the Apple Pencil was cheaper from Apple’s Swiss […]
University Life… but different
My son started in September his second year at Kings College university in London, and it looks nothing like the start to university life he had as she freshman 12 months ago. Staying at a hall of residence was already out of the question last year, since we have a perfectly good and spacious home […]
Mind the generation gap
Now I’m certainly not considering myself a spring chicken, approaching fast my 60th birthday next week, but I feel reasonably young and dynamic, and still quite in tune with people 15 years younger than me, particularly when I look at the current president of the United States who is not only 74 but also the […]
Getting off Scot-free
It’s very frustrating, isn’t it, you and I are held to account for all our deeds and misdeeds and made to pay our taxes. And then there are the diplomats across the world, neither paying taxes in the countries they are being posted to, nor often any other dues on the back of misdeeds, such […]
High street woes
The British High Streets haven’t been an inspiring place to visit for a very long time, and you couldn’t probably distinguish a high street in the North of England from one in the South: The same store and coffee shop chains everywhere with very little individual and local trades left. And then the pandemic hit. […]
To learn or not to learn
I am surprised by the debate in the UK as far as school children returning to class is concerned: Having been off since March and, in particular as far as state schools are concerned, having had very little or no teaching for the best part of the past 6 months, I would have expected that […]
What your car says about you…
A Finnish study earlier this year examined the correlation of expensive cars and their owners. It’s authors started on the premise that drivers of expensive makes are more prone than others to jump a red light and in general be more reckless drivers. Previous research had apparently shown that money corrupts, in the sense that […]
A Swiss spy story (take 2)
You may have heard about one of the biggest spy stories in recent times, involving a Swiss manufacturer of encryption equipment sold to governments around the world. When the story broke in February, it was revealed that the Swiss company was in fact owned and controlled by the CIA and the BND, Germany’s spy agency […]
A tale of two crises
While Britain is slowly recovering from the Covid crisis, and, I hasten to say, at a slower pace than many of its European neighbours, another crisis already lurks around the corner: Brexit. Let me be quite clear about this: the British government has never been keen on an extension of the transition period beyond December […]
Burger wars
If you like a juicy burger, you may find this story appetising: A Den Haag court has recently ruled that the food giant Nestlé has named it’s ‘incredible’ burger deliberately for consumers to confound it with the ‘impossible’ burger of US based Impossible Foods. Impossible Foods had launched its veggie patty in 2016 (the burger […]
The grumpy older man 