Author ArchivesJohn

Rob Lyons has an excellent response to the comments of celebrity chef Gordon Ramsay today in Spiked. We like Ramsay and he’s found favour on this blog before, but these latest comments – in which he says it should be illegal for restaurants to offer food shipped from other parts ...

Another week! Minette Marrin is back on my radar this week with an article about waste, echoing my own thoughts On Waste but in a, er, superior way. While she starts practically speaking, “Flexible catering cannot be entirely frugal, nor can serious cooking,” she doesn’t disappoint: “The real truth is ...

I’ve heard from a lot of people about ‘Super-Size Me!’ and, although the film is now a few years old, a lot can be learned about a person by observing how they respond to it. The film by Morgan Spurlock deals with issues of responsibility, of personal liberty, health, capitalism ...

A great article today from Rob Johnston on cannabis: “The argument about cannabis and schizophrenia reflects the modern view of children. In the memories of the 1968 generation, the ‘mild and gentle weed’ they smoked and made them mellow has been replaced by ‘skunk’ which turns today’s children into aggressive ...

Well, I started to write this yesterday, but got sidetracked by a virtually impromptu wedding – my sister-in-law got married quietly and casually last night after much drama. I had a horrible headache all day yesterday, my Jeep’s been in repairs for 4 weeks (when I get it back, it’ll ...

Dear Douchebags, Last year you pursued (and last week convicted) Deborah Jeane Palfrey (pictured), a Washington DC escort service operator for several crimes including running a prostitution service. An hour ago, police announced that she hung herself in a shed near her mom’s house. Those of you who made, uphold ...

Life is like a game of Tetris: it throws down difficult conditions sometimes, it gets faster and faster until you feel you’re going to throw up from stress, and it never ends happily. …. Okay, I don’t really mean that. I was playing Tetris on my phone a few minutes ...

“Pain at the pump” has become the most overused headline of the past year as the cost of gasoline has skyrocketed to Friday’s US average of $3.59 per gallon. Our British readers may feel that this is cheap, since Friday’s average price in Britain was $8.20 per gallon, making UK ...

A 31 percent rating at Rotten Tomatoes is not impressive. It seems the critics didn’t like it. But I was interested in the story of the MIT Blackjack Team as told in the movie ’21’. Although I’ve never gambled much, I’ve been intrigued by casinos and table games and odds ...

Another week, and three stories of interest to me this Monday. First, I’m happy to report that Stern sidekick Artie Lange is back on the show today following a week of intense speculation about his future on the show. This comes after Artie’s on-air meltdown and resignation on April 10th ...

I’m being surrounded on all sides now by friends blogging about Ben Stein’s new film Expelled, a pro-creationist anti-evolution documentary which attempts to legitimise creationism by appealing to its status as the underdog in the science world (see Crawley’s piece here and Ronald Bailey’s Reason piece here for good examples). ...

…and it’s all due to global warming.

Happy Tuesday, punters. Since upgrading our software we’ve been having a few problems with the RSS feed on the site; I know many of you subscribe to the articles using RSS and we apologise for the issues. So far, there are no timescales for a fix, but I’ll post again ...

I know, I know. It happened in Dubai: “A father-of-three who was found with a microscopic speck of cannabis stuck to the bottom of one of his shoes has been sentenced to four years in a Dubai prison.” “A search by customs officials uncovered a speck of cannabis weighing just ...

With today’s high gas prices, might it be possible to rent a hybrid vehicle like the Toyota Prius from a company like Avis for less than it would cost to drive your SUV? I might try it out; a permanent Prius rental.

Little pleases me more than a discussion with a modern-day evangelical conservative who has been told all their life by their conservative parents, teachers or mentors that America was ‘founded on God’ and who hold Thomas Jefferson as the embodiment of their values. The fact is, as mentioned in this ...

I heard it shortly after waking up yesterday morning, an incredible piece of live radio that will make Howard Stern Show history: sidekick Artie Lange having a heated on-air argument with his assistant Teddy, then launching himself at him and having to be restrained by several Stern show staffers, then ...

Reason Online refers to the case of a seven-year-old school kid whose permanent record at school now includes “Sexual touching against student, offensive.” The boy slapped a girl’s bottom in class one day, prompting the teacher to call the police. Neither the boy’s mother nor the girl’s mother believe the ...

Heston Our original article here: Today, Kevin Yuill eulogises Charlton Heston, agreeing with us that Moore was “bullying”, “disgracefully.” Yuill summarises, “Heston’s hands may now be cold and dead, and he may have cut a forlorn figure in the past few years, but he remains a giant compared with Lilliputians ...

Charlton Heston died on Saturday. The man who played Moses in The Ten Commandments was known for playing such heroic roles. In the 1950s and 60s he was “one of a handful of Hollywood actors to speak out openly against racism” and later a vocal advocate of conservative politics. It’s ...