Let the Good Times Roll!

Up in space, NASA have made yet another invaluable contribution to the future of humanity by inventing a system for recycling urine into drinking water. And what a fine use of public money, even at this time of great austerity. Previously if I wanted to drink my own piss they'd have called for the men in white coats. It is certainly an improvement on blowing it out the airlock.

I understand that the fight against obesity may be close to a breakthrough. My young niece tells me that scientists are working on a supplement which will trick the body into creating a hormone that will suppress appetite. This is certainly an improvement on the Gordon Brown / George Bush approach to the obesity epidemic which is to destroy the economy to the point where we have to reintroduce rationing and round the clock soup kitchens.

On that theme, many of us have been reassured by young Barak Obama's appointments to his new cabinet. We had feared that he might fall into the trap of bringing in new faces with original thinking just because they might know what they are doing. We shouldn't have worried – he is instead following Gordon Brown's lead by packing government with as many of the people responsible for the economic crisis as possible. Quite right too. They can't be trusted to run loose. Who knows what damage they might do?

The Chinese, meanwhile, are getting worried. I had the great pleasure to share lunch with an old business acquaintance yesterday and he explained how the Chinese economy works. It seems that they've been telling their people to invest the pittance they earn for working fifteen hours a day in a sweatshop in bonds which are issued by American banks which was then used to lend money to Americans and Europeans who can't pay it back so that they can use it to buy cheep stuff that they don't need and which is made by those same Chinese sweat-shop employees. I know, it is impossible to see the flaw in this plan but apparently it is not going so well now that no one in the West can afford to pay back their loans. So you can see that it is even more important than you thought that you go out and spend as much money as you can like the government wants you too. So spend, spend ,spend! The future of the world depends on it!

History Repeating

We live in a terribly cynical age but I for one do not believe that McCain was merely trying to score points when he announced that he would be breaking off his campaign to work on the credit crisis. After all, he is old enough to remember the terrible consequences of that other great stock market crash, when the South Sea Bubble burst in 1720. You can see a young John pictured to the right.

Of course back then people got into trouble by thinking they could get rich through investing in companies that wanted to make guns that fired square cannonballs or buying up the Irish Bogs. There was even a company which convinced speculators to invest £2000 “For carrying on an undertaking of great advantage but nobody knows what it is.” So you can see that people in the eighteenth century made much more sensible investment decisions than those at the start of the twenty first. Of course the big difference is that back then the trouble started as a cunning plan to reduce government debt while this time we are trying to solve the problem by massively increasing government debt. The other difference of course is that back then hundreds of politicians lost their shirts while this time they have cleverly ensured that the taxpayer will carry the can. We've come a long way in three centuries!

The weeks events have had the effect of making the Chinese into the western world's main creditor and they have been celebrating this new status with their flashy new space program. This week they conducted their first ever spacewalk, boldly going where no man has gone for a couple of weeks, successfully dragging the country into the 1950s. Still, it's considerably more impressive than us Europeans. We've had to make do with a chap from Switzerland flying across the English Channel strapped to a jet powered ironing board. You can see him here!

As for myself, I enjoyed a small party at home. My PA Jemima offered to provide the entertainment – she she has been taking dancing lessons and wanted to show off what she had learned. I was a bit concerned when she told me she was going to do the dance of the seven voles. “Don't you mean veils?” I asked. “That's funny,” she replied, “That's just what the man in the pet shop said!” Mind you, I would love to know how she got those voles twirling in both directions at the same time!

The perils of Space Travel

There is trouble in outer space of all places. The toilet on the International Space Station is broken. Now call me old fashioned but I thought that space travel was supposed to involve shiny rockets shooting rays at each other not hanging about in a metal tube crapping in a plastic bag and blowing it out the airlock. I think I would, if you will excuse the indelicacy, hold it in until I got home.

Which takes me back to the days when the main problem we had with toilets was finding some paper – when rationing finally ended after the war I was so desperate I nearly shot myself! (it was around the same time that I discovered that I wasn't a very good speller.) Soon the country was flooded with handily packaged rolls of paper towels imported into the country, as it happens, by my father's company. What a relief! No more popping next door to ask the neighbours if they had two fives for a ten!