Fact Checker

 

The talented/numpty spectrum

Alan Ashworth has an entertaining TCW piece on the enormous difference in talent to be found in Fleet Street, from the genuinely talented to overpaid numpties. We probably see the talented/numpty spectrum in all fields.

That Reminds Me: Heroes and villains of Fleet Street

I HAVE written previously about some of the wonderful and talented people I worked with in Fleet Street, including Gordon Greig, Lynda Lee-Potter, Nigel Dempster and Keith Waterhouse. Obviously, the Daily Mail also had its share of complete numpties.

One in particular comes to mind: a specialist writer who was the embodiment of the principle that the worse the journalist, the higher his opinion of himself. He used to turn in the most godawful rubbish which the long-suffering sub-editors had to translate into English. He would then send off cuttings of the results in the hope of winning whatever press awards might be going, yet he made it clear that he never had any time for subs. He was also a shameless freeloader, running a company Jaguar and once overheard boasting to a contact: ‘We journos are a high-maintenance breed.’ What a wally.


The whole piece is well worth reading. As a bonus it includes a section about Horlicks.

The food drink of the night

WHEN I were a lad, no café was complete without its Horlicks machine. This comprised a deep metal cup in which sweet malted milk powder was combined with hot water then whisked together by means of a long steel nozzle which aerated the mixture and provided a lovely frothy drink costing about sixpence (2½p), if memory serves.

You could make Horlicks at home by making a paste with the powder and water, topped up from the kettle or a pan of hot milk, but it wasn’t quite the same.

Nevertheless Horlicks, marketed as ‘the food drink of the night’, was a firm family favourite and was always produced in our house when one of us was struggling to get to sleep.

More engineering vacancies in North Korea

North Korea says spy satellite launch crashed into sea

North Korea has said an accident happened as it planned to send up its first space satellite, causing it to crash into the sea.

Pyongyang announced earlier it planned to launch a satellite by 11 June to monitor US military activities.

It now says it will attempt a second launch as soon as possible.

Another small piece in the jigsaw

Insurers' climate alliance loses nearly half its members after more quit

LONDON (Reuters) - Three more insurance companies including Tokio Marine have left a United Nations-backed net-zero climate alliance, leaving the group with about half the number of members it counted two months ago as insurers take fright at U.S. political pressure.

Some Republican politicians have mounted a campaign against financial institutions collaborating to try to curb carbon emissions, and a group of Republican attorneys general have turned their focus on insurers by accusing them of potentially breaching antitrust laws in the United States.

Another of those little snippets of information picked up while browsing the internet. Idle browsing in this case, I wasn't looking for anything in particular.

Yet snippets like this one do highlight how complex global political games are and how they always trend towards more rules, more restriction and less choice for the little people. Fortunately this move seems to be stumbling, but it's another small piece in the jigsaw.  

Sustained Stratospheric Virtue Signalling

Kurt Mahlburg has an entertaining Tablet piece on what he calls the Montgolfier Award for Sustained Stratospheric Virtue Signalling. He gives his award as a Top Ten. Two examples are given below, but the whole piece is well worth reading as a reminder of how powerful virtue signalling can be.


And the inaugural Montgolfier Award for Sustained Stratospheric Virtue Signalling goes to…

Tenacious struggles against reality ought to receive public recognition

8. Davos (Switzerland)

It’s our award to give so we’ll consider a whole city full of virtue-signallers if we feel like it — in this case, the ski resort town in the Swiss Alps that plays host the annual World Economic Forum’s annual shindig, Davos.

7. Oxford City Council (United Kingdom)

In April of this year, news surfaced that Oxford City Council, in the UK, was planning to flog off some of the historic paintings on display in its iconic Town Hall to fund more “diverse” and “progressive” artworks.

Politics and Coffee

Noel Yaxley has an entertaining Critic piece on the failure of The Anarchist Cafe in Canada.


The rise and fall of an anti-capitalist café

What if — and I hope you’re sitting down — capitalism works better?

With the exception of Katherine Ryan and Nickelback, I have always looked up to Canadians. From the Pacific to the Atlantic, they share a collective mindset that embodies a spirit of self-reliance and resilient individualism. Having spent a lot of time in small fishing villages around Nova Scotia myself, I know this all too well. It is no exaggeration to say that Canadians are the product of a harsh environment. Temperatures can drop to minus 40 degrees, and the polar bears will leave you alone if you have a gun.

So, I sympathise with Gabriel Sims-Fewer in many ways. This ambitious young Canadian had dreams of opening his own coffee shop in downtown Toronto. There’s nothing wrong with that. Entrepreneurialism is admirable. It’s refreshing to find a driven, passionate man who believes in unfashionable virtues like discipline and hard work. Plus, who doesn’t want to have a damn good coffee?

The whole piece is well worth reading as a reminder that there are many people who think political ideology can bypass the realities of human nature and human organisations which actually generate value.

The Anarchist Cafe at 190 Jarvis Street described itself as an “anti-capitalist, anti-colonial cafe, shop, and radical community space on stolen land”. If it is stolen land, should he not give it back? The strangeness doesn’t end there. Here we have an entrepreneur who starts a business under the pretext of rebelling against capitalism.

The Anarchist Cafe encouraged customers to pay what they can afford — at least for filter coffee. Other items, such as espresso, tea and baked goods, were charged at full price to offset lost revenue.

Somehow, this did not lead to unqualified success. The store will close permanently on May 30, according to the company’s website. Who would have thought a politically divisive, ultra-progressive company would go out of business in just one year?

Chicago weekend