Whatever your views about the phone hacking scandal which has taken over our newspapers and almost every other source of news, I cannot believe that there is anyone who is not appalled that someone should think it appropriate to hack into and delete phone messages on a mobile phone belonging to a kidnapped and ultimately… Read More: Spoiling the party »
Is this the correct advice to businesses which are now subject to the Bribery Act 2010? After the thousands of words written about it over the past 18 months, the Bribery Act has now come into effect. As from July 1st 2011, British business has to face up to the reality of doing business under a… Read More: Fasten your seat belts »
One of the oldest Cistercian monasteries in Europe, founded in 1118, by St Bernard, sits in a marshy valley near the small town of Montbard in Burgundy. It was here in the medicine garden of Fontenay Abbey that I found myself on a gloriously sunny day at the end of last month. I must confess that… Read More: Old Macdonald had a farm »
In which Kanga and baby Roo come to the forest, and Piglet has a bath In an effort to avoid the increasingly tiresome subject of super injunctions leading to a spat between the judiciary in the stern figure of the Lord Chief Justice no less and that well known tribune of the people in the… Read More: The Aha moment »
My favourite misquotation is “money is the root of all evil” or for those of you with a Latin bent, “radix malorum est cupiditas.” The correct quotation of the words from the King James Bible, 400 years old almost to the day, is in 1 Timothy 6.10. “For the love of money is the root… Read More: Misquoted »
One of the wonders of the Internet is that almost anything you care to look for is there, somewhere! Not just historical facts, political articles, scientific treatises and the like but almost anything you care to think about. Has anyone noticed how many people were away from the office in the past few days? The… Read More: A pointless waste of time »
On 12th March 1829 undergraduates at the University of Cambridge sent a challenge to their counterparts at Oxford and started a tradition which continues in more or less the same form to this day. If you missed it last Saturday, imagine 16 heavy athletic men, plus a smaller man and a girl, afloat on the… Read More: Dines with dinosaurs »
It is nigh on impossible to open a serious newspaper or magazine these days without finding an article on the Bribery Act 2010 which was supposed to come into force in April 2011, after publication of the guidance promised by the Government. I recall that such guidance was to be published three months before the… Read More: Bribery, corruption and the free lunch »
In 1807 England was at war with Napoleon. In the graveyard of St Laurence’s Parish Church in Stroud, Gloucestershire a plain stone carries the inscription: Here lie the remains of Lieutenant Joseph Francis Delmont, of His Majesty’s 82nd Regiment, born November 25, 1785, died August 18, 1807. On August 14th 1807 Delmont and Lieutenant Benjamin… Read More: Pistols at dawn »
What makes a human being brave? There are clearly a variety of possible answers to the question. Frequently, what seems incredibly brave to some is perceived by others to be extremely foolhardy. Many of us will remember the bravery of Colonel H, awarded the Victoria Cross posthumously in the Falklands War but fewer will know… Read More: Courage mon brave! »