Author Archives: odeboyz

Doctors: What do they know?

Posted on February 20, 2020 by odeboyz

Just after Christmas 2019, I wasn’t at all well. No energy, headache, fever with terrible back pains in my lower back. Jan, my wife, dialled 999 and in what felt like a few minutes, two young paramedics were in my … Continue reading →

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Operation Barbarossa Rebranded

Posted on February 17, 2020 by odeboyz

Germany, the Fatherland, attacked Russia, the Motherland. An act of domestic abuse? Chris

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Wittgenstein as a school teacher

Posted on February 17, 2020 by odeboyz

Jonathan Rée writes insightfully about Wittgenstein’s life and work, but he does skate over one crucial detail (LRB, 21 November). After six years working in village schools in the Austrian Alps, Rée remarks, Wittgenstein ‘gave up teaching and returned to … Continue reading →

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Why the Labour Party is middle-class: George Orwell 1936

Posted on February 13, 2020 by odeboyz

I am struck again by the fact that as soon as a working man gets an official post in the Trade Union or goes into Labour politics, he becomes middle-class whether he will or no…. by fighting against the bourgeoisie … Continue reading →

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Medieval Routes to Heaven

Posted on February 13, 2020 by odeboyz

Medieval Christians accepted, as fact, Mankind’s inherent sinfulness. They also accepted, as fact, that Heaven existed. The aim of life was to enter Heaven and share eternal life with Jesus. Squaring this circle had a dramatic impact on their lifestyles. … Continue reading →

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A CIA spy enters the Soviet Union

Posted on February 10, 2020 by odeboyz

The CIA spy was fluent in Russian, had perfect Cyrillic handwriting and could drink buckets of vodka. He was dropped on the outskirts of Moscow and spoke to a man in the street, “Hello comrade, can you direct me to … Continue reading →

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Book Review: Abhijit V Banerjee and Esther Duflo ~ Good Economics for Hard Times – Better answers to our biggest problems (2019)

Posted on February 10, 2020 by odeboyz

It’s easy to feel intellectually intimidated by a book by two Nobel Prize winners and perhaps that’s the right response sometimes. On this occasion it isn’t.* This is a readable and homely book written in an accessible way. The ‘biggest … Continue reading →

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Washington, Nixon, Trump

Posted on February 6, 2020 by odeboyz
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The price of paranoia

Posted on February 6, 2020 by odeboyz

“On Friday, we received a 911 call from Ronald Cyr’” a police spokesperson told reporters in Van Buren, Maine, “who said that he’d been shot. Officers arrived at his house, along with Van Buren Ambulance Service, and the US Border … Continue reading →

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Theresa May’s hypocrisy

Posted on February 3, 2020 by odeboyz
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