Which is the best city in the world to be a student? It is an almost impossible question to answer – are you looking for the best party city or the most rarefied academic cluster? Miami or Boston, Newcastle or Oxford? And should you consider the most perennial of student concerns – money? How far would a student loan go in New York, London or Paris? […]
Society
Chapter eight of the book of Hosea sets out the following stark warning: “For they have sown the wind, and they shall reap the whirlwind: it hath no stalk: the bud shall yield no meal: if so be it yield, the strangers shall swallow it up.” This biblical admonishment is usually interpreted in a metaphorical sense as a warning for those who do evil. In its […]
Black Sunday and the winds that destroyed the west
Yesterday’s Vaguely Interesting article looked at the numismatic phenomenon that is the US 50 State Quarters programme. Whilst it was an unrivalled seigniorage success story, the programme was not without its mishaps, mistakes or unintended consequences. Once a state’s chosen image was minted, it was there for posterity in hundreds of millions, if not billions, of copies. New Hampshire New Hampshire depicted the Old Man of the […]
Striking the wrong note
In 1999 the United States Mint issued the first of its 50 State Quarters. Over the next 10 years, each state in the Union would be showcased on its own shiny quarter dollar coin. The law passsed on 1 December 1997 as United States Commemorative Coin Program Act was controversial, with some officials claiming it marked the ‘Disneyfication’ of US currency. From Delaware to Hawaii, the […]
Coining it in
We drove east out of Philadelphia on Interstate 76, heading towards Lancaster County in search of the Amish. I’ve been fascinated by this religious group ever since watching the documentary ‘Devil’s Playground’, a film that follows a group of Amish teenagers during their ‘rumspringa’. Rumspringa or Rumschpringa stems from the Pennsylvanian German ‘rumspringen’ – to run around. It refers to the period of adolescence when Amish […]
Amish paradise
It is a pretty simple culinary invention, but one that carries a whole heap of history and divides a city’s loyalties as completely as any sporting rivalry. It is the cheesesteak and, if you are a Philadelphian, you’ll instinctively know the answer to the question ‘Pat’s or Geno’s?’. There are certain things everyone can agree on with respect to the Philadelphia cheesesteak. It is a sandwich. […]
Pat’s or Geno’s? The great Philadelphia cheesesteak wars
Hispaniola is the second largest Caribbean island, and the Dominican Republic is the second largest Caribbean state (the island and country are both pushed into second place by Cuba, which is almost 50% larger). Hispaniola is the most populous of the Caribbean islands, with about 19 million people. The Dominican Republic has just under 10 million citizens, and thus the second largest population in the Caribbean […]
Hispaniola – Caribbean paradise?
This week the Sunday Times’s economics editor, David Smith, recorded a fascinating piece for BBC Radio 4’s Broadcasting House. It is called “If Britain were Greece …”, and imagines the UK under the same financial, economic and social strains currently affecting Greece. The resulting piece is an economic “It Happened Here”, and it paints a bleak and sobering picture. In this nightmarish alternative Britain, unemployment has topped 7 […]
Greek tragedy
Tomorrow is a leap day, the spare day that comes (almost) every four years to ensure our calendars are correct. Newspapers and blogs are awash with ‘leap day’ facts today. I was in two minds as to whether to acknowledge this quadrennial event or ignore it (given the blanket alternative coverage). In the end I decided to present a selection of my favourite leap day facts. […]
Leaping into the unknown
It was a bright summer’s day in Kent as the Folkestone Boat Express thundered towards London. The Express, an integral part of the iron link between London and Paris, had reached England on the afternoon of 9 June 1865 and had cleared the South Downs, a little over 45 miles from its destination. The train sped through Staplehurst at 50 mph and was crossing the iron […]
Charles Dickens’s near death experience
New York may be the unofficial capital of the world, but it doesn’t have the highest living costs to match. In the Economist Intelligence Unit’s annual Worldwide Cost of Living Survey New York is only the 47th most expensive place to live out of 131 cities. This year’s priciest place is Zurich, largely thanks to the rising strength of the Swiss Franc. The Swiss financial centre […]
Are Zurich? If not, live somewhere else
Earlier this week I highlighted Claire Tomalin’s excellent biography of Charles Dickens. I have been pleasantly surprised by the numerous revelations of surprising idiosyncrasies and quirks that make him a particularly fascinating subject. One of the most surprising facts is that Dickens was a passionate believer in mesmerism (sometimes referred to as magnetism). He even went so far as to practice this unconventional form of medical […]
The magnetic Mr Dickens
In a year that is crowded with major anniversaries and major events, the bicentennial of Charles Dickens’s birth looms large. The BBC has been awash with documentaries, adaptations and readings and exhibitions on the great man are being staged across London, Portsmouth and Rochester. My own ‘tribute’ has been to read Charles Dickens: A Life by Claire Tomalin. It is a cracking biography, and provides a fascinating […]
Like maggots in nuts – Dickens in the Inn
I was at a talk this morning on Australian labour practices. As my day job involves employment law, this was not as random as might seem. The speaker was rattling through some of the key differences between UK and Australian employment law and noted that the minimum wage in Australia was AU$15.51 per hour. In the UK the national minimum wage rate currently stands at £6.08 […]
Getting by on Bondi Beach
What is the capital of Wales? W? No points and certainly no prizes if you put forward that answer. Hopefully, everyone reading this blog would know (or at least guess) it is Cardiff. But did you know that Cardiff was only made the capital of Wales as recently as 1955? So where was the Welsh capital six decades ago? And what made them choose Cardiff in […]
Cardiff – capital of Wales?
Have you ever been seized with a mad desire to see thirteen British counties in a single day? No? Just me? In another vaguely interesting section on the BBC’s Great British Railway Journeys, Michael Portillo visited Broadway Tower. This is a curious, three sided folly on the top of Broadway Hill. Broadway Hill is the second highest point in the Cotswolds, rising to 312 metres above sea level. […]
Counting the counties
Where is Western Europe’s largest onshore oil field? Perhaps secreted under one of Norway’s fjords, under one of the Shetland Islands or close to the vast coal fields of northern France and Belgium? Most people wouldn’t guess the Isle of Purbeck in Dorset, but this is the home of 480 million barrels of recoverable reserves of crude oil. The oil field stretches east from Purbeck into […]
Wytch Farm is the richest of them all
If they weren’t so easy to hate, it would be difficult not to pity the top 1%. They have become an international scapegoat of the financial crisis, a universal punch bag for the dispossessed, angry and disillusioned. The phrase ‘We Are The 99%’ has become a universal slogan uniting many against a privileged few. But who are the 1%? How should their wealth be measured? By […]