Just met a guy in rural Austria. Told him I’m from London.
Him: “I’d love to go to London. But I don’t want to get stabbed.”
Glad to see our good reputation has travelled round the world.
In Germany you know which platform your train leaves from months in advance – it’s on the timetable.
In Britain Network Rail doesn’t tell you until the train is just about to leave.
Just found out that my mother (the tax partner in a firm of London accountants) has just received the first instalment of her winter fuel allowance.
Universal Boomer Income.
America: rejected because your application lapses into hubris
British UCAS personal statement: ‘My passion for geography was first sparked when I went on a scintillating field trip to Durdle Door.’
For whatever it’s worth to Zach or other students, I’ve sat on Rhodes Scholarship committees & reviewed many elite apps.
This essay: (1) lapsed into hubris by the end of para #1, & (2) didn’t explain *why* Zach wants to learn from other humans, let alone at a particular uni.🧵
In Britain we have an unusual cultural practice.
It’s called ‘following the signs’ which is a bit difficult to translate but roughly means ‘looking where you are going and reading things that are posted on walls’.
While the rest of Europe is debating statues,
Poland is preserving cathedrals, restoring medieval squares, and opening palaces to the public.
It didn’t chase glass-and-steel “progress.”
It made history visible again.
The British Library is so intensely civilised.
>walk in
>go through some pointless bureaucracy
>deal with a ropey IT system
>access to EVERYTHING EVER PUBLISHED IN BRITAIN
Britain in 1997 was a barbarous time. Slavery was a way of life. Censorship was rife. Habeas corpus was unheard of. The tyranny of John Major suspended elections, and locked up and prosecuted people in kangaroo courts for made-up crimes.
Oh wait.
This from @mjrobbins on the HS2 access track is utterly maddening, but reflects a key flaw in the planning system - councillors pay absolutely no personal cost for spurious decisions, even when they know they will lose on appeal and cost taxpayers huge amounts in the process
In this week’s Sunday Times, I’ve written about hard work, and why for young people (people younger than me, that is) there’s no incentive to work hard, because hard work simply no longer pays off in terms of jobs, salary, lifestyle.
thetimes.com/article/9aaec8…
