Argentina protects its now largely foreign landowners (eg George Soros)

Russia its military-owned businesses, such as counterfeit DVDs

The US its cotton industry comprising only 1% of GDP and 2% of its workforce

The author writes in a very chatty, light-hearted matter which makes the book easy to digest. 

Other books here

Click for an account of this momentous, high-speed event
of March 2009

 
Click on the logo
to get a table with
the Rugby World Cup
scores, points and rankings.

Over the competition,
the average
points per game = 52,
tries per game = 6.2,
minutes per try = 13

  
Click on the logo
to get a table with
the final World Cup
scores, points, rankings and goal-statistics

won by New Zealand

Gift Idea Cuddly Teddy Bears looking for a home Click for details  “”

Neda Agha Soltan; shot dead in Teheran by Basij militia

Good to report that as at 14th September 2009 he is at least alive. FREED AT LAST, ON 18th OCTOBER 2011, GAUNT BUT OTHERWISE REASONABLY HEALTHY

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What I've recently been reading “The Lemon Tree”, by Sandy Tol (2006), is a delightful novel-style history of modern Israel and Palestine told through the eyes of a thoughtful protagonist from either side, with a household lemon tree as their unifying theme. But it's not entirely honest in its subtle pro-Palestinian bias, and therefore needs to be read in conjunction with an antidote, such as See detailed review +++++ This examines events which led to BP's 2010 Macondo blowout in the Gulf of Mexico.  BP's ambitious CEO John Browne expanded BP through adventurous acquisitions, aggressive offshore exploration, and relentless cost-reduction that trumped everything else, even safety and long-term technical sustainability.   Thus mistakes accumulated, leading to terrifying and deadly accidents in refineries, pipelines and offshore operations, and business disaster in Russia.   The Macondo blowout was but an inevitable outcome of a BP culture that had become poisonous and incompetent.  However the book is gravely compromised by a litany of over 40 technical and stupid errors that display the author's ignorance and carelessness.  It would be better to wait for the second (properly edited) edition before buying.  As for BP, only a wholesale rebuilding of a new, professional, ethical culture will prevent further such tragedies and the eventual destruction of a once mighty corporation with a long and generally honourable history. Note: I wrote my own reports on Macondo in May, June, and July 2010 +++++ A horrific account of: how the death penalty is administered and, er, executed in Singapore, the corruption of Singapore's legal system, and Singapore's enthusiastic embrace of Burma's drug-fuelled military dictatorship More details on my blog here. +++++ This is nonagenarian Alistair Urquhart’s incredible story of survival in the Far East during World War II. After recounting a childhood of convention and simple pleasures in working-class Aberdeen, Mr Urquhart is conscripted within days of Chamberlain declaring war on Germany in 1939. From then until the Japanese are deservedly nuked into surrendering six years later, Mr Urquhart’s tale is one of first discomfort but then following the fall of Singapore of ever-increasing, unmitigated horror.  After a wretched journey Eastward, he finds himself part of Singapore’s big but useless garrison. Taken prisoner when Singapore falls in 1941, he is, successively, part of a death march to Thailand, a slave labourer on the Siam/Burma railway (one man died for every sleeper laid), regularly beaten and tortured, racked by starvation, gaping ulcers and disease including cholera, a slave labourer stevedoring at Singapore’s docks, shipped to Japan in a stinking, closed, airless hold with 900 other sick and dying men, torpedoed by the Americans and left drifting alone for five days before being picked up, a slave-labourer in Nagasaki until blessed liberation thanks to the Americans’ “Fat Boy” atomic bomb. Chronically ill, distraught and traumatised on return to Aberdeen yet disdained by the British Army, he slowly reconstructs a life.  Only in his late 80s is he able finally to recount his dreadful experiences in this unputdownable book. There are very few first-person eye-witness accounts of the the horrors of Japanese brutality during WW2. As such this book is an invaluable historical document. +++++ “Culture of Corruption: Obama and His Team of Tax Cheats, Crooks, and Cronies” This is a rattling good tale of the web of corruption within which the American president and his cronies operate. It's written by blogger Michele Malkin who, because she's both a woman and half-Asian, is curiously immune to the charges of racism and sexism this book would provoke if written by a typical Republican WASP. With 75 page of notes to back up - in best blogger tradition - every shocking and in most cases money-grubbing allegation, she excoriates one Obama crony after another, starting with the incumbent himself and his equally tricky wife.  Joe Biden, Rahm Emmanuel, Valerie Jarett, Tim Geithner, Lawrence Summers, Steven Rattner, both Clintons, Chris Dodd: they all star as crooks in this venomous but credible book.  ACORN, Mr Obama's favourite community organising outfit, is also exposed for the crooked vote-rigging machine it is. +++++ This much trumpeted sequel to Freakonomics is a bit of disappointment.  It is really just a collation of amusing little tales about surprising human (and occasionally animal) behaviour and situations.  For example: Drunk walking kills more people per kilometer than drunk driving. People aren't really altruistic - they always expect a return of some sort for good deeds. Child seats are a waste of money as they are no safer for children than adult seatbelts. Though doctors have known for centuries they must wash their hands to avoid spreading infection, they still often fail to do so.  Monkeys can be taught to use washers as cash to buy tit-bits - and even sex. The book has no real message other than don't be surprised how humans sometimes behave and try to look for simple rather than complex solutions. And with a final anecdote (monkeys, cash and sex), the book suddenly just stops dead in its tracks.  Weird. ++++++ A remarkable, coherent attempt by Financial Times economist Alan Beattie to understand and explain world history through the prism of economics.  It's chapters are organised around provocative questions such as Why does asparagus come from Peru? Why are pandas so useless? Why are oil and diamonds more trouble than they are worth? Why doesn't Africa grow cocaine? It's central thesis is that economic development continues to be impeded in different countries for different historical reasons, even when the original rationale for those impediments no longer obtains.  For instance: Argentina protects its now largely foreign landowners (eg George Soros) Russia its military-owned businesses, such as counterfeit DVDs The US its cotton industry comprising only 1% of GDP and 2% of its workforce The author writes in a very chatty, light-hearted matter which makes the book easy to digest.  However it would benefit from a few charts to illustrate some of the many quantitative points put forward, as well as sub-chaptering every few pages to provide natural break-points for the reader.  +++++ This is a thrilling book of derring-do behind enemy lines in the jungles of north-east Burma in 1942-44 during the Japanese occupation. The author was a member of Britain's V Force, a forerunner of the SAS. Its remit was to harass Japanese lines of command, patrol their occupied territory, carryout sabotage and provide intelligence, with the overall objective of keeping the enemy out of India.    Irwin is admirably yet brutally frank, in his descriptions of deathly battles with the Japs, his execution of a prisoner, dodging falling bags of rice dropped by the RAF, or collapsing in floods of tears through accumulated stress, fear and loneliness.  He also provides some fascinating insights into the mentality of Japanese soldiery and why it failed against the flexibility and devolved authority of the British.  The book amounts to a  very human and exhilarating tale. Oh, and Irwin describes the death in 1943 of his colleague my uncle, Major PF Brennan. +++++ Other books here

Won by New Zealand

Won by New Zealand

Click for an account of this momentous, high-speed event of March 2009 Won by Wales

Click on the logo to get a table with the Rugby World Cup scores, points and rankings.   After 48 crackling, compelling, captivating games, the new World Champions are, deservedly, SOUTH AFRICA England get the Silver, Argentina the Bronze.  Fourth is host nation France. No-one can argue with the justice of the outcomes Over the competition, the average points per game = 52, tries per game = 6.2, minutes per try = 13

Click on the logo to get a table with the final World Cup scores, points, rankings and goal-statistics