When former US President Herbert Hoover flew down to Argentina in 1946 it was to request that the newly elected President Juan Peron order a massive grain shipment to Europe aimed at staving off a post-war famine. Following his successful mission, he commented that Peron's young wife, Eva, had the brains of Eleanor Roosevelt and…
Blessed are the consumers (part 1)
One of my first memories as a child is of the working forge across the road from our home where rag-and-bone men and other deniers of the 20th century could take their carthorses to be shod. A couple of days ago I was driving with my son through an ultra-orthodox enclave, where the regular upkeep of roads…
Territorial expansion
M.A.D. has to be the best acronym ever. "Mutual Assured Destruction" is what the world looked like it was heading for 50 years ago this week when the young John F Kennedy faced down Nikita Khrushchev in the Cuban Missile Crisis. October 16, 1962 has gone down in history as the morning National Security Adviser McGeorge Bundy…
Faulty Powers
A month shy of the 40th anniversary of its first broadcast, I was impressed when my teenage son asked me last week whether I had ever seen the Cheese Shop sketch. He was astounded when I started quoting from it and informed him that Monty Python had defined humour for my generation (sorry Yanks, it…
Tax Break 