AN OUTSIDE VIEW

Decent internet at last. I have tried several times to get one of those 3G-USB sticks to work but they do not like Linux. Now there is this little WiFi modem, about the size of a small mobile phone, which links to my wireless card. It was a little tricky to set up but now works without trouble. The speeds are good: download is 5.65 megabits, uploading is 1.09 megabits.

Expressed in the politest possible terms, the report by Sir Andrew Foster is a damning indictment of the Department for Transport and its working methods. " The real issue here, I believe, is that there has been insufficient communication between the Department and the industry, including communication about IEP, and this has opened the way for significant negativity to develop. This is a key area for attention and further improvement. This problem, particularly with IEP, appears to have been amplified by DfT’s procurement approach, which has placed heavy emphasis on commercial confidentiality and thus relied on independent advisers and consultants rather than industry expertise. This has engendered a sense of disengagement and disenchantment which I believe could and should largely have been avoided. I also ask a number of questions about arrangements for managing the costs and coherence of independent advice within the Department" . "At the end of the earlier section o...

coal port , originally uploaded by König . A good example of how the Latvian economy has failed to develop as well as it might, and a reminder of how the economy is still tightly tied in to the former COMECON system can be seen as one enters the country by boat. A huge coal export terminal is spread out along the river frontage on the approach to Riga. The coal, mined in Russia, is delivered in enormously long trains composed of trucks with the word HOBOTPAHC (NOVOTRANS) in giant letters on the side. It is not an appropriate name. There is nothing novel about these trucks. They do not have hoppers underneath for unloading and the coal has to be scooped out by cranes, dozens of them. It is piled up in great heaps and reloaded into the holds of ships which go to a variety of destinations including the UK. This unnecessary double-handling is a clear example of job preservation for the sake of it. In a modern system the trucks would have hopper doors underneath. The coal would drop o...

Went to Stockholm today and to the Saturday evening mass in the Catholic cathedral. I had forgotten how dire the cathedral is. An attractive late nineteenth century building, it was extended (in the 1970s by the look of it) by demolishing the sanctuary and constructing a horrible new asymmetric space. I don't know what else to call it. The ceiling is covered with hexagonal gold thingies (I don't know what to call them either) and the walls are faced in dark brick, or perhaps they are tiles that look like brick. The design might have been suitable for a station on the underground, but it would still look dated. The "liturgy" was as dire as the building. The priest's accent was so strong - I am told it was Polish - that I could hardly make out a word he was saying, but I fell asleep for the sermon anyway. The Salve Regina at the end was the only part of the Mass that was done properly. Such is the result of Cardinal Buggeration's reforms. Stockholm deserves bett...

Financial services are mostly parasitic on the real economy since they produce nothing. The main functions of a bank are to provide cash handling and payment services to hold deposits safely to arrange credit The first two are obvious. The third is to facilitate production eg in a simple rural economy the farmer needs to buy seeds and live, in reality on the previous year's production, until the crop is harvested and sold. This is why credit is needed, and it is extinguished at the end of the production cycle. The main cost on this is an administrative one of setting up the credit. There is also a need to make provisions against possible default, but that is an insurance function. Not only is there no necessity to charge interest or insist on collate, the practice is positively dangerous, especially when land is accepted as collateral for the credit. Banks should not act as moneylenders, nor should they give credit for anything other than to facilitate the physical process of produ...

Efter att drottning Kristina abdikerade på Uppsala slott i juni 1654 flyttade hon till Rom. Dit kom hon 18 månader senare. Det sägs att hon hade blivit katolik i hemlighet medan hon var Sveriges drottning men det kan inte ha varit så därför att hon mottogs av katolska kyrkan i Bryssel december 1654. Ett år senare, december 1655, red hon triumferande in i Rom på en vit häst. Påven själv hälsade henne och firandet fortsatte i några månader. I början bodde hon i Farnesepalatset, som ägdes av hertigen av Parma. I palatset öppnade hon en skola. Där studerade man musik, litteratur, teater och språk. Hon blev nära vän med den berömda arkitekten och skulptören Bernini. Efter ett par år tog hennes pengar slut och hon reste till Frankrike på besök hos kung Louis XIV. Kristina och kungen konspirerade om att hon skulle bli drottning i det italienska riket Neapel, istället av den dåvarande spanska kungen. Drottningen misstänkte sin hovstallmästare Monaldeschi för att ha förrådit henne och beordrade...

The Archbishop of Westminster was recently interviewed about the church's attitude to condoms, in particular, in relationship to HIV in third world countries. The church's position is difficult to defend. I am not going to comment on this, because there there is another issue behind it. Poverty. That is why there are so many prostitutes in some countries, and that is the principal mechanism through which HIV is spread. There is major economic injustice, institutionalised. That is the greater sin. And what does the church say and do about poverty? Very little. It is seen primarily as an issue of charity hand-outs. The church preached quite rightly against the evils of communism but with a few honourable exceptions has always supported the ruling unjust economic structures. The Social Teaching encyclicals are good as far as they go, but they fail to spell the situation out as clearly as they might. In fact, it is hard work to extract anything solid out of them that could ...

Efter Drottning Kristina flyttade till Rom, år 1655, blev hon konst och musik beskyddare. Den mest kända av drottnings skyddslingar var Alessandro Scarlatti men det viktigast är troligen den nästan okänd Giocomo Carissimi. Han undervisade en annan av drottnings skyddslingar, Arcangelo Corelli, som Handel hälsade på när han besökte Rom 1709. Det verkar att Handel studerade de gamla kompositörernas manuskripten därför att en stark inflytande kan urskiljas. Det här finns den mest berömde stycken av Carissimi, "Plorate Filii Israel" från oratorium Jeptha, skrivet 1665.

The royal wedding on the 19 June attracted a lot of enthusiasm but there have also been plenty of voices raised in favour of getting rid of the monarchy. The Swedish monarch has much less of a functional role than the British one, where the Queen is responsible for putting her signature to every piece of legislation and could, in theory, refuse. The allegiance of the military forces is also to the monarch and not to parliament, and again, in theory, the army could act against Parliament. The last time a European monarch exercised real power was in Spain, a few years after the retirement of Franco, and it is worth remembering that he intervened to prevent a right-wing coup. As a general rule, it is not a good idea to get rid of an institution that functions reasonably well, not least because the original reason for having the institution may have been forgotten and might be rediscovered only when the institution is abolished, when it is too late. The British political system is not func...