The huge bailout by the US and other governments appears to be doing something to settle the financial crisis, thugh many countries are probably already in recession and most of the others are likely to follow. Though such bailouts go against one of the fundamental principles of capitalism – that businesses should suffer the consequences of their bad business decisions – they were necessary to preserve the whole global financial system. In the case of the US, the whole financial system may well have fallen over without it, and a genuine depression may well have resulted. Of at least equal importance was the effect on overseas investment in the US. USA needs enormous inflows of overseas capital just to balance its books, and these may well have dried up. An interesting point is: how will the US government pay for the bailouts, which will increase the national debt (already the world’s highest) by about 50%? Raising taxes will not be popular, and both Presidential candidates have denied any intention to do so. In the long run, the partial nationalisation of some financial institutions may prove a good investment, but that could be a very long run. Make no mistake, that is what has happened in the US and many other countries: a partial nationalisation of some financial institutions. Many would suggest that this shows a fundamental flaw in capitalism which can only be solved by more regulation. Though President Bush is still firmly ideologically committed to a free market system, the rest of the G20 is virtually unaminous in the view that more regulation is necessary, and this is likely to occur. I think capitalism as we have known it in recent decades will certainly be much modified. The pendulum may well swing back the other way in the future, but how far in the future who can tell.

“Before the Renaissance, writers and artists were valued for their skills rather than their individuality. Today the originality of creative writers, whether they be novelists, playwrights or poets, is inescapably linked with self-exploration. The writing we most value is that which makes an authentic, individual statement; which conveys the writer’s personal view of life.” Anthony Storr, writing on depression, in The Author magazine. This is undoubtedly true of writing on depression, but I’m inclined to think that the creative works that sell the best are those that accord with the reader’s personal view of life.

GPS is undoubtedly a boon to the traveller, though there have been quite a few horror stories of people getting into diabolical situations through blindly following GPS. My misgiving about GPS for the traveller, however, relates more to its accuracy. Through getting lost at least once a day, I have blundered across many scenes – especially parts of cities – I would never have seen following a GPS-guided route. Not to mention some entertaining contacts with locals.

Want someone to warm to you? Give them a mug of hot coffee to hold. That’s the message from a recent study published in the journal Science (Experiencing Physical Warmth Promotes Interpersonal Warmth. Lawrence E. Williams and John A. Bargh. Science 24 October 2008: 606-607).  Maybe we should entertain prospective girlfriends or boyfriends or clients with a mug of hot coffee rather than a glass of champers? I guess overall warmth might work equally well. She might be cold just because she is cold. After all, as Rudyard Kipling put it, ‘ What men call gallantry and gods adultery is much more common where the climate’s sultry’.

It seems very likely that the US will soon have its first black President. It is probable that the US may even have a female President within the next few decades. But it will be a long, long time (if ever) that the US has an atheist (or at least a confessed atheist) President. Despite all the evidence to the contrary, most Americans still seem to think an atheist is necessarily immoral or amoral and a Christian is bound to give them a fair deal.

W. H. Davies

Leisure

WHAT is this life if, full of care,
We have no time to stand and stare?—

No time to stand beneath the boughs,
And stare as long as sheep and cows:

No time to see, when woods we pass,
Where squirrels hide their nuts in grass:

No time to see, in broad daylight,
Streams full of stars, like skies at night:

No time to turn at Beauty’s glance,
And watch her feet, how they can dance:

No time to wait till her mouth can
Enrich that smile her eyes began?

A poor life this if, full of care,
We have no time to stand and stare.

Most non-Americans can only view the US political process, especially the Presidential elections, with amazement. Is it really necessary to spend a year or more and several hundred million dollars to elect a President, powerful though he may be? Is it really more democratic a process than elsewhere? Or do the rich and powerful end up with the man they wanted, thoroughly beholden to them and myriad other lobby groups?

No, I’m not going to tell you how to get one. If you’re like me, you get bombarded with SPAM telling you how. The fact, of course, is that none of these miraculous products actually work. The sales line that the bigger your dick the more satisfaction your partner will get is also not necessarily true. What women want is not length but strength – the strength of the erection, that is. In other words, the firmer the better. When the guy has a really firm erection, it conforms much better to the shape of the vaginal passage (so that it actually ends up looking like a boomerang). Further, anything up to a few more inches can be added to its normal length from the root of the penis, so that a 6 inch penis can in fact end up as much as 9 inches.

Spellcheck in Microsoft Word is a great invention. It does even cater pretty well for the variations in spelling between US English, British English and Australian English. However, many writers think all the have to do is spellcheck and all will be fine, neglecting to check for the ‘or’ that should be ‘of’, and so on. It also doesn’t distinugish between ‘everyday occurrences’ and ‘things you do every day‘. On the other hand, the grammar tool is nearly absolutely useless (the only thing I use it for is to pick up the occsional inadvertent extra space between words) and often just plain wrong.