We are near the time when we all take a break, eat, drink and be merry.And why not? A volatile world has battered us for twelve months.Now we need to sit back and think. This and the next two Daily Paradox articles will endeavour to help you do that. Today we ask you five questions.…
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The values that I have are pretty old fashioned by the standards of when you read this in the future. Because of a disrupted early childhood they came to me later in life than they did to most people – perhaps all the more trenchantly for that, who knows? They are common sense values, owing…
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I don’t like Boris Johnson, just in case any of you were in doubt about that. I don’t like his example to my great grandchildren. I don’t like his lying. I abhor the lifestyle he enables the media to print about him. He comes a close second to Trump in my dislike of today’s international…
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In my youth I was taught prudence and generosity with money. It left me careful but kindly, a pretty good mix for wartime (WWII) and postwar Britain. Everyone got fed up with that philosophy at the start of the 1960s. The Advertising Agents were later depicted as Madmen. They were – and so was the…
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Reporting in the New York Times, David Epstein tells us about the work of Angela Duckworth, a psychologist who conducted extremely useful research into the business of quitting. Her work, originally with the Army, was intended to predict who, among the freshmen intake, would drop out and who would stay. The regime through which they…
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A fine old negotiation that turned out to be, didn’t it? Brexit, I’m talking about. Not heard? I expect you have. Perhaps you preferred to turn a blind ear. Understandable if you did. Anyway, the long and short of it is that for all the time spent negotiating with the EU, the tables have been…
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To know that you have as much as a fleeting thought in common with Michelangelo is to lift your spirit above the clouds to the sunshine of eternity. For me – a creator of a very much humbler level than the Maestro – to learn that he worked until he dropped at 89 is magic.…
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A Daily Paradox ‘Sensible Politics’ Special It’s not as if we are operating among politicians of much integrity and honesty. But it is as if Jo Swinson is missing the biggest opportunity of her life. Uninformed dogma about ‘remain’ is as bad as uninformed dogma about ‘leave’. There is a huge number of people wanting…
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The oath you take in a dock or witness box in a British (or almost any other) Court commits you to tell ‘the truth, the whole truth and nothing but the truth’. At the end of the proceedings you will be found guilty or innocent. If guilty of a serious crime you will be sentenced…
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We review our investments regularly, at least monthly if we are sensible. We review our business almost daily with a variety of reports and meetings to ensure it is not going off the rails. We review our children’s education at least three times a year. We review our parents’ old age arrangements as often as…
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