Terrorism - admitting that it works is too hard to take...

Progress is often stifled by pretending to live in a world that one would prefer to live in, rather than the world one does live in. For example, the UK is saddled with a political and administrative entourage suited particularly well to a powerful, wealthy nation running a large empire, but singularly ill-equipped to manage a post-industrial society sinking under a load of debt.

Another example - hallucinogenic drugs make people feel good and don't do any lasting harm to most of the people who use them. Include alcohol and tobacco in this definition, as they should be included, and it's patently true. Now, this doesn't excuse naive scientists who tangle with governments, but it does explain why any policy which refuses to acknowledge this fact is bound to fail.

And here's a big one to follow up with - violent terrorism gets results.

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Not the NHS - but the RTD

There's only one thing that people of any nation hate more than their fellow countrymen, and that's people from another country. To help them sustain the idea that they themselves are greater collectively than any other people, they need myths. In the UK, we have several myths - among them are the belief that we gave democracy to the world, that we have the best police force in the world and that our TV is the best in the world. But one of the most enduring is that our health service is the best in the world.

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Oh, yes, competition... forgot about that

Banks again.

Four of the idiots were up before the beak today. Sir Fred Pisspot, Sir Tom Dickhead, Andy Pratt and Lord I Know Nothing About Banking But The Lunches Were Awfully Good appeared before a Commons committee to explain how they were very sorry, but it really wasn't their fault as they didn't know anything about banking and anyway it all came from America.

By the by, I really can't be bothered with them. As indeed should you not be, as the solution to the problem of the banks is simple. People have forgotten about the mechanism of competition.

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Then what's the point of you?

Two things have happened this week that are quite unusual these days - one of them has rocked the nation to the core, and the other is causing small ripples of concern that spread slowly outward.

The first event was a 'snow event' according to the weather people. It snowed quite a lot in the south-east of England, and particularly in London, which has nearly brought the country to its knees, apparently. And the second, lesser event is a good old-fashioned labour dispute, of the sort that I grew up with and that I thought I would never see again.

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Gee... how many, did you say?

Davos, that club for the elite that sounds like a Dr Who villain, is over once again. The parties have finished, the whores and journalists have moved on to the next feeding ground and the hot air dissipates into the atmosphere. Has it made a difference? Well, maybe more to them than to us - for G7 suddenly sounds a little too exclusive, a little too much like we're trying to rule it over you, the unsavoury smack of colonialism. It's G20, now, the suped-up, super-size club for people in power. But for how long?

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