Author: tomkilcourse

A sceptical Mancunian who dislikes pomposity and rudeness.

Making the Skin Crawl

We watched a documentary on French television last night that made me itch just watching it. We were treated to scenes of clothing, jeans and shoes, being manufactured in Asia, mainly China and Bangladesh, during which the products were liberally sprayed and impregnated with toxic chemicals. We were also shown what can happen to people who buy these things. One woman who bought shoes in Paris ended up with feet that looked as if they  been trampled on by a herd of cattle.

Marginalising

I readily confess to being a life-long marginalist. For as long as I can remember I have been unable to read a non-fiction book, be it on politics, economics or management, without scribbling notes of dissent on several pages. So, it is a new experience for me to go through a book without reaching for the pen. Ironically, I bought the book that gave me this experience fully expecting to disagree with the author from beginning to end. That was because I discovered the book through a very misleading review by a journalist.

To anyone interested in what is happening to the global political-economy I strongly recommend ‘The End of the Free Market’, by Ian Bremmer, an American analyst. It is a very important, readable book.

Oh, dear!

Announcing that over a hundred Earth sized planets have been found in the last week alone, the Mail boldly claims that:

‘The breakthrough raises the tantalising prospect that we may not be alone in the Universe.’

Immediately under that sentence the paper tells us that scientists now believe that there are over 100 million planets in the Milky Way, i.e. in our own galaxy. Given what we now know about the Universe, how can anybody believe that we are ‘alone’? Yet newspapers frequently, when announcing some new discovery, resort to the kind of nonsensical sentence shown above.

For Fellow Writers

I notice that there are several writers on this site, some of whom might, like me, have tried to get published by conventional publishers. That process can be quite wearing and demotivating. For those who are interested, I have recently discovered a new digital publisher. So new indeed, that the site is still under development. I have put some of my stuff on it. If you are sceptical about digital publishing, as I was, note the news that Amazon in America now sells more books digitally than the paper type. Have a look at the website, which is now open to receiving material:

http://www.writersreadersdirect.com/home

(Link fixed S)

Best of luck.