Discuss 6

'I can calculate the motions of heavenly bodies but not the madness of people.'

Isaac Newton after losing £20,000 in the South Sea Bubble.

Gordon the Beijing Duck

So Blair is stuffed. I presume Brown has been running around Europe telling people not to have anything to do with the man in his final act of revenge for the Granita Betrayal. In spite of his public support, a Blair presidency would be a Brown nightmare. Anyway, Blair's saving of Brown last June has turned out to be pointless. Brown couldn't or wouldn't deliver on his side of the bargain, the presidential cap with flames and eagles. More to the point, one reason for Mandelson's June support of Brown - the Blair elevation - has gone. What with that and the dismal performance of our economy, Brown is no longer a lame duck, he is ready to be eaten with spring onions, cucumber, Hoisin sauce and pancakes.

Bernie Madoff

I've been reading about Bernie Madoff. This has made me wonder why people who have a lot of money always seem to want more. I want more money. I think £10 million would suffice. But then, I suppose, I would, indeed, want more. I probably couldn't afford a decent yacht, for example. So, say, I have £100 million. I think that would be enough. But, reading about Madoff, I see that there is no limit to the amount of money people want. This is obviously competitive. With £100 million on hand, you will almost certainly find yourself surrounded by people who have more. More would buy you a bigger yacht, perhaps one with an attached submarine. This is pathetic, of course, but, at this level, I don't think the possessions are anything more than signals. The real point is the pursuit of the abstraction of numbers on a bank statement. This is also pathetic. There used to be a joke about rich people phoning their money every morning. This feels psychologically accurate, the abstraction of money has become more real than what it buys. One of the reasons for the values in the art market - and, indeed, the amount of art - is the intuition of some rich people that there's something a bit thin about the money abstraction. They could read poetry, but that's a dangerous step too far away from money as it costs nothing, or a bit if you actually buy the books. So they buy art which is a dream team - it offers non-monetary values and it is very expensive. Anyway, that said, I still don't really know why people with a lot of money always want more.

Discuss 5

'Egalitarianism is possible only in small social systems. Once a medium gets past a certain size, fame is a forced move.'

Clay Shirky

Goats Etc

I have nothing to say so I shall merely observe that the great Jim Lovelock has said expecting humans to save the planet is like expecting goats to do the gardening. Well, good news, apparently, goats can garden very effectively. Meanwhile, over in the Sunshine State, welcome to Arnie's Acrostic. Impossible man to dislike, Arnie.

Discuss 4

'Well, the computer changes epistemology, it changes the meaning of 'to understand'. To me, you understand something only if you can program it.... Otherwise you don't really understand it, you only think you understand it.'

Gregory Chaitin

Miliband's Generalissimo

I am intrigued by David Miliband's argument for Blair's presidency of the EU. He has a motorcade factor apparently. I won't be given the chance to vote for or against Blair any more than I was given the chance to vote against Brown. Now - call me anxiety-prone - I do find the idea of unelected presidents in motorcades somewhat alarming. It has - how shall I put it? - bad associations. Perhaps, pursuing the boy David's logic, Blair should also wear a white uniform covered in gold braid, medals and a sash. An enormous generalissimo's cap with a gigantic badge involving flames and eagles would be good. I'm sorry I'll miss that great spectacle. I shall, of course, have been 'disappeared', having been rounded up, kept in the wonderful new Olympic Stadium for three weeks and then dropped from a helicopter into the Channel. Good times.

Discuss 3

'We can never say 'merely' for metaphors, because that is what all descriptions are; we can never state just what something is, we can only describe what something is like - that is, to describe it in terms of other things that seem to us to have similar properties - and then to consider the differences.'

Marvin Minsky

Discuss 2

'Discontinuity is a manifestation of independent individuality and autonomy, Discontinuity intervenes in questions of final causes and ethical and aesthetic problems.' Nicolai Bugaev.

A Brush with Deaf

About four weeks ago I lost most of the hearing in my left ear. If I stuck my finger in my right ear, everything seemed to be coming down a bad telephone line. After ignoring this for about two weeks, as one does, I became aware that it was changing my life. I was avoiding crowded places and constantly shifting to get my right ear pointing in the direction of significant noise. I realised that I was becoming even more anti-social and was adjusting to a more locked in life, all on the basis of a loss of about a quarter of my hearing. Finally, I went to Bones. He gave me steroids which made me feel great but didn't work. Then, yesterday afternoon, came the consultant. In the morning I felt a strange movement accompanied by a kind of click in my left ear. I turned on Radio 4 and realised my hearing had returned. The consultant told me I was bloody lucky. What I had was Sudden Hearing Loss (I think I knew that). Nobody knows what causes it, though my man favoured a virus, and, in general, if it doesn't spontaneously remit within two weeks then you've got it for life. Mine remitted after almost four weeks. The good news was that it seldom returns. I'm telling you this for two reasons. First, I thought of that great headline. Secondly, the effect on my life of even such a minor handicap was so profound. Everything is so fragile - obvious I know but worth a reminder every now and then.