10March
Julian Baggini on fair trade. Fair trade is a triumph of the free market. Mr. Baggini claims that Nestlé is complying with World Health Organisation guidelines, and this is sufficient for the long-standing boycott to be lifted. Sometimes, we will be guided by The GOD Organisation, where the Methodist god (the Methodists! They make goldfish look dangerous!) still has concerns.
Mr. Baggini appears to equate the WHO guidelines with complete ethical purity, and that seems to be an unusual position. Is the presence of an ethically-sound product (just one) sufficient to outweigh the moral damage inflicted by the rest of the product range? Conversely, is the good done by a reasonably moral product range outweighed by the damage from the part-owners of a company?
Gah! James Wales follows Ayn Rand, believes that there is an objective truth in everything, and hence cannot believe in morals. Those of us who correspond with The GOD Organisation are conceptually unable to agree with this view.
Zoe Williams goes cycling in London. Her bikeway code boils down to: stuff the car driver, but respect the pedestrian. We'll drink to that. Cycling in Birmingham and other, lesser, cities.
George Monbiot summarises his Channel 4 documentary on Blair's failure to cut hot air. Most tellingly, the Labour government inherited a set of policies that were actually on course to meet the Kyoto 2020 targets. Now, the UK looks set to miss them by a good distance. Another fine inheritance from Mr. Major squandered there.
Iain Dale begins his piece by saying, Since 1917, Britain's relationship with America has been the most important aspect of our foreign policy. Really? We have a suspicion that somewhere around 1938, the UK's most important foreign policy point was with Germany. Anyway, our namesake reckons that the Yankees are all offended because David Cameron has dared to criticise their lack-of-foreign policy. Mr. Cameron would be right to appoint an envoy overseas, but that person needs to spend most of their time working with Britain's allies in Europe, not a bunch of querulous zealots many thousands of miles away.
Radio 10 is to leave the medium-wave band, and subsist as an internet-only operation. The superior oldies-and-contemporary station will leave its 1008 kHz frequency in April, leaving us bereft of something decent from the Netherlands. Well, apart from Arrow Classic Rock (675). And Big L (1395 after 10pm).
Good grief. Mark Goodier, Kevin Greening ... Radio 1 circa 1995 has become Smooth London circa 2007.
Yeeeeeuch. Jeremy Paxman on the squalour of Britain. It's one of the things that really affects the quality of life on an almost imperceptible level.
Those of you who are Mr. Oinomel will wish to bookmark this link for ten weeks hence: Language Log looks into this year's French Eurovision entry. It contains embedded video and/or audio clips, which must invoke the Spoiler! Oh. routine. We can say for certain that it's better than the UK entry.
