Skip to main content

A new home

Welcome to the Nth Columnist, my new home for matters domestic, political and things that are probably best filed under 'other'.
Why'The Nth Columnist'? Well, let's face it - all my blog writing up till now has had a largely journalistic flavour, so I felt that a title that reflected that would be a good idea. It's also a reflection of the idea of outsider politics - despite the fact that life itself is very much a political thing, it seems that getting one's voice actually heard above the hubbub is increasingly difficult.
And, let's be honest here, 'The Joy of Raki' wasn't getting that well read.
I'll be including some old posts from there on here in due course.
As to what you can expect from this, it will largely be a continuation of ideas explored and written about in the Joy of Raki, with the exception of the Turkish stuff - I'll be dedicating a new blog to that, once I've narrowed down my choices of name.
Hope you enjoy!

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Same old day

 Well, of course it isn't, but as this is meant as a companion piece to the previous post, it seems only right to link the titles. So, I hope you weren't left with the impression that I am always in the deepest throes of anxiety: I am not. While I recognise it as the climate of my mind, it is nevertheless not actually the weather, as it were. Sometimes, the sun shines: at others, storms rumble and tear across the skies of my psyche. The good thing is that I have been able to forecast the problems a lot more accurately as I've grown older, and so I've developed several coping strategies which work, more or less. Not always, but they mitigate the worst moments and mean I climb out of any spiral just that bit faster. It'll blow over So the first thing is what I've alluded to in my meteorological metaphor - these moments when things are bad are temporary and they will pass. They always have done before, and there's no reason that they won't again. That is a ...
1 comment
Read more

Gimme Shelter!

We're in the middle of a serious housing crisis. Here are two ways we could fix it. It's long been a maxim that the best place to invest your money is in bricks and mortar. That's probably never been truer than in the housing market in the UK for the last thirty years or so. Have a guess how much market prices have increased since 1970. Go on. 10%? OK, 25%? Hmm.. let's try a bit more....100% Nope. In fact, average house prices, in real terms, have gone up an eye-watering 346% since then. And that's the national average - it doesn't take into account regional variations. For example, in my home town the average home has gone up in monetary value by 6% in the last six months alone, and it is estimated that house prices may go up by 43% once the new Crossrail scheme becomes active in 2017. To put that in context, a property 'worth' £200,000 (just about a two-bed place) would be 'worth'  £288,000 within the space of a few months. For...
Post a Comment
Read more

In, Out, or Shake it all About?

We're all doing the EU Hokey-Cokey, whether we like it or not. Wait long enough, and the same old things come back round. Fashions come, go and return - we seem to be in a bit of a 90s Nostalgiafest at the moment, for example. This is bad enough, as there is nothing worse than one's youth and young manhood being repackaged as History, but I am damn glad that there is currently no serious attempt to bring back the 70s. Cheesecloth shirts. Flares and platform shoes. Really BAD hair. The great smell of Brut. And, for me, the sheer terror that was any form of group dancing. The Hokey-Cokey in particular - you have no idea how much I hated that bloody dance. My seven-year-old self couldn't grasp why anyone would ever want to do it - I mean, what for? OK, here's my left leg in...now you want me to take it out..right...and the same process with my right leg....why are we doing this, and why do we now need to do this again? My Eyes! My Eyes! They're Bleeding! I...
Post a Comment
Read more