Cover Page, 21 January 2021, Issue 263 Welcome to our latest edition. This week we lead with comments on the problems of news publishing, ancient and modern. We also consider the UK’s latest Covid-19 statistics, the possibilities for a greener future, partying in lockdown, government bonds, a Corbynista’s week, and more.
21 January 2021 False News Damping it down. By John Watson Just occasionally the illusions fall away and one is left staring at the truth. That happened last week with the banning of President Trump from various social media platforms. Until then it was possible to be seduced by the argument that the platforms were
21 January 2021 Fleet Street Decline and fall. By J.R.Thomas Bored with sudoku? Finished Boffles in our pages? Nothing on the racing page catch your eye? Here is a little exercise to pass the long lockdown winter evenings. You need a newspaper, any newspaper will do, though maybe the more upmarket ones will work better.
21 January 2021 The Future Bright and beautiful, or bleak? By Lynda Goetz Did you know there were hippos in Columbia? Until this week, I certainly didn’t. Apparently four of the animals were left behind when the drug lord Pablo Escobar was shot in 1993 and his private zoo broken up. Other creatures were shipped
21 January 2021 Let’s Party Like It’s… …2021? By Neil Tidmarsh All over the world, police are having a hard time enforcing lockdowns, social distancing and all the other anti-virus rules and regulations. Spare a thought for officers in Argentina who were called in to break up a party on an estate in the resort
21 January 2021 The Great Government Bond Carousel Profit (for traders) and Loss (of central bank independence) by Frank O’Nomics Nice work if you can get it. On one side of the trade stands the Bank of England, on the other HM Treasury. In the middle, a group of investment banks making sizable profits with
21 January 2021 Diary of a Corbynista Best to stay in bed by Don Urquhart 13 January Yesterday’s Newsnight reported on the high attendances in primary schools. Mary Bousted, the joint General Secretary of the National Education Union (NEU) explained this as being largely due to poor people being unable to stay off work because
21 January 2021 Trials and Tribulations The US and Italy. By Paul Branch 23 May 1992 will be long remembered by Italians in general and Sicilians especially. It was a date commemorated in one of the original episodes of Inspector Montalbano, the iconic TV police series set in picturesque rural Sicily in the fictional town
21 January 2021 Wagner’s ‘Ring’ Revealed and explained (3) By Philip Throp SIEGFRIED Years have passed and in a cave in the deep forests lives the dwarf Mime, a less violent but nevertheless equally calculating, estranged brother of Alberich, the dwarf who had, in Das Rheingold, enslaved the dwarf population to work in his
