OneGuyFromBarlick

‘’Brexit and Marmite..... Discuss.....’’ Apparently, Marmite is essentially a by-product of the brewing industry (it’s made in Burton-on-Trent). Brewing requires hops and almost all hops now are imported, the hop fields in Kent going the way of the mines in that county. Thus the costs have gone up r...

Fraser Stoodart was born in Edinburgh but aged 6 months his family moved out of the city to become tenant farmers. The primary school he went to had only 5 pupuils and he learned to knit there, as the other four were all girls.

Richard Broughton

The Nobel Prize for Chemistry has been awarded to Jean-Pierre Sauvage, Sir J. Fraser Stoddart and Bernard L. Feringa for the design and synthesis of molecular machines - controllable, nanometre-sized structures that can convert chemical energy into mechanical forces. Hoorah! Fraser Stoddart is anoth...

The Nobel prize for Physics has gone to a British trio all working in US institutions – David J Thouless; F Duncan M Haldane; and J Michael Kosterlitz. The three physicists work in the field of condensed matter physics. They discovered totally unexpected behaviours of solid materials, and came up wi...

‘’As I understand it, no 'negotiations' or even conversations can take place until we have informed the 28 EU countries that we are initiating exit by invoking Article 50.’’ Article 50 starts the process of leaving. It is in our gift to trigger this. This sets a 2-year timescale to leave the EU and ...

If you're fascinated by whales I can recomment a book: Leviathan by Philip Hoare. Engrossing.

Another prize announced this morning; I'll pop a synopsis on here when it's done.

Richard Broughton

The Nobel Prize for Medicine has been awarded to Japanese cell biologist Yoshinori Ohsumi for his discoveries on how the body’s cells detoxify and repair themselves, or autophagy. Disturbances in autophagy mechanism have been linked to various diseases and conditions such as Parkinson’s, Type 2 diab...

Never saw that Tiz. The main aperitivo seems to be Spritz. This is Aperol, prosecco and soda over ice. Aperol is a bitter, like Campari (same colour) though easier on the liver at 13%. Three parts Aperol to one part prosecco, bit of soda and all over ice. Very nice. Aperol is readily available here ...

No. The local butter was unsalted too. Apparently, bread is seen there the same as pasta. A vehicle for flavour. And you never have bread therefore with pasta. Thus bread is toasted and drizzled with olive oil and salt for breakfast. Bruschetta (stuff on bread) and Crostini (spreads on toast) are Tu...

Robert Caro’s 4 Volume yet still unfinished biography of Lyndon Johnson. The Times of Lyndon Johnson is as much a history of 20th century America as it is a biography of the man. I have read of this work for a number of years and bought all 4 Volumes. I read Vols 1 and 2 on holiday – they are weight...

Italy. Province of Siena. One the boundary of the Crete Senese and Val d’Orcia. What a beautiful spot. If anyone can recall the film Gladiator, it’s where his family was filmed at home. Classic Tuscan: rolling clay hills with cypress-studded hilltops and isolated hilltop villas. We had a lovely time...

Back from Italy. Loved the place and will pop a few observations on the ‘where have you just been’ thread. On the matter Tizer mentioned above some weeks back, Brits being seen as non-EU citizens and charged differently, we saw none of that at all. I can only imagine this might be a scam to gauge th...

‘’………..the proposals for a Transatlantic Investment and Trade agreement have foundered. Good! I think it was more about the giant American service corporations getting a toehold here…’’ Leave campaigners argued that this agreement, what we know as TTIP, could only be stopped by voting to Brexit. The...

‘’Since the UK does not have a similar system ( ID Cards……….’’ Good point that. One reason why ‘illegal’ non-EU nationals are attracted to the UK is that it is far, far simpler to vanish below the radar here because we do not have ID cards. Nothing to do with the EU, it’s our own decisions. The EU s...

I’m going to the Hoylake Beer Festival tonight, which has run every August BH for the last 4 years. Sixty-five different beers, a number of ciders and a perry or two; wine and local artisan gin. The purpose is to provide us all with the opportunity to drink some nice beer and much else, but more imp...

‘….have we got any bright politicians’ The problem is more that, on this matter, they lack knowledge. Much like the vast, vast majority of folk in the UK there is a lack of knowledge on the EU and its institutions and their operations. Longitudinal surveys have for some time showed that UK nationals...

''It seems that we may have to pick up the very generous severance pay and pension rights.....'' Not just the MEPs. Around 2700 UK nationals have in their time worked, or continue to work, for the EU institutions. Responsibility for honouring the pension entitlements of all these folk will have to b...

‘’We are also promised that the European Human Rights will be scrapped in favour of a British Bill of Rights. Does this mean that the British are no longer to be considered to be human?’’ Quite. I would add that scrapping the Human Rights Act would drive a horse and cart through the Good Friday Agre...

The thing about a fall in house prices is that it is generally a bad thing. The one exception is when they fall due to an increase in supply, but as we are not too keen on building houses in this country and have not been for a while (and this is entirely of our own doing), then it is unlikely incre...

The current electoral system works against any re-alignment of parties. A proportional system would go a long way to scrapping the tensions in each of the main two, not least as there’d be no need for the shotgun marriage that charactersises the Tories and Labour and has done for a while now. Labour...

My apologies as we seem to be at cross purposes. I know that there is a Directive at the European level on ‘free movement’. I was commenting on this point: .. After 90 days, anywhere else in Europe , you have to either have a job and a residence registered with the authorities, private health insura...

Pascal Lamy was interviewed on the radio this morning (aide to Jaques Delors and former EU trade negotiator and WTO gaffer). He was interesting. He was taking the Herr Dr Schauble’s line on Brexit, the one that I take and one I would hope the EU takes. And that is, we have voted to leave the EU. Tha...

‘….have no idea of the actual EU legislation on the subject.’ That’s because there is no EU legislation on the subject as it is for individual Member States to put in place whatever system they want with respect to accessing services etc.. There is simply the principle of no discrimination. What you...

As we have a representative democracy with a sovereign Parliament then any referendum is only advisory. There is a clear majority in the current Parliament for remaining in the EU. As any representative democracy requires that elected representatives owe us their judgment and not their vote then thi...

Well one positive outcome for me might be that, as we will sink to our true place in the world, we may very well give up (or be told to give up) our seat as a permanent representative at the UN. Which then really makes our spending billions on a nuclear deterrent not worth the candle. In fact, we co...