Mail against Monarch (maybe)

In The Mail of October 24th, the editorial is on the dangers to the monarchy of its own financial independence from the government. Under a new deal, the monarch will receive a guaranteed income stream henceforth, without having to request it from the government via the Civil List, as previously. The Mail proposes that this may result in a future monarch feeling free to meddle in politics without any consequences from the government, and ends with a warning that this would turn the most loyal monarchists into the most likely enemies of monarchy - presumably including the Mail itself?

Is this all based on a Prince Charles idea or is it a generic thesis from the paper? The latter, it would seem, as it also carries a longer opinion piece elsewhere, entitled, "The Chancellor may bitterly regret handing Charles a licence to meddle"

Comprehensive Spending Review voodoo

The day after (Thursday 21st October 2010) the 'Comprehensive Spending Review' (Wednesday 20th), in the Financial Times, Philip Stephens and Martin Wolf wrote good articles in which they outlined that it represented a gamble based on a pre-Keynesian faith which they did not share.

Reminiscent of the 'voodoo economics' jibe used in the USA.

Design Massacre

http://www.ft.com/cms/s/2/d4d476f0-d1a0-11df-b3e1-00144feabdc0.html
Design Massacre

Police, Adjective

This movie, "Police, Adjective", has got a great review in The Big Issue. However, it has now left the London cinemas.

Felix Dennis

Felix Dennis has got around, he's recently been in both:

• The Big Issue (with beautiful illustrations by Matthew Hollings)
• The Financial Times.

In The Big Issue, he says, "The writing of free verse is so monumentally easy - quite frankly, my cat can do it."

He's made his money in publishing and is now writing poetry.

Highbrow history in 100 objects

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/culture/tvandradio/8057212/An-object-lesson-in-history-from-Radio-Four.html

An Object Lesson in History

Apparently there is also now a book out. Both have got rave reviews in the Telegraph.

The Grand Tour

Brian Sewell (but of course) writes in the Evening Standard that the Grand Tour of Italy went in the order of:

1. Paris
2. Turin = most modern city in Europe
   
3. Bologna = post-Raphaelite paintings of the Carracci, Reni, Guercino & followers
   
4. Florence = Italian Renaissance
   
5. Rome = Antiquity
   
6. Naples = the bay & Vesuvius
   
7. Venice = relaxation

He sums up that this is a 'cultural education chronologically reversed', undertaken by those who were 'by wealth and rank "destined to a sauntering insignificant life".'