The Conservatives are complaining that Whitehall departments spend too much money at Christmas. The total five-year spend of Whitehall departments on Christmas parties, decorations and cards was £461,000, which works out at a
twenty pence per civil servant per year. This
– almost enough for one bite of a Marks and Spencer Mince Pie – will doubtless
, at least those who aren’t repelled by the unseasonal stench of cant and hypocrisy.
It’s a great day today, as the borders between even more European countries evaporate. I wonder how long it will be before we Brits (and Irish) see sense?
If the fancy takes you, you can now download the entire National Rail Timetable in pdf format from the Network Rail website. Not as easy to use as the web-based journey planners, but good for finding slow routes that wouldn’t show up on the web – like the direct Exeter to Brighton trains on Saturday mornings that are as slow as anything but also eliminate changes at Salisbury and Fratton for my mum.
If you want a representation of why the American healthcare system is so, so broken, head on over to givewell.com, where you can buy a Visa-brand healthcare giftcard, handy for all those occasions where getting life-saving treatment has to be preceded by handing over cold, hard cash.
I remember attending a lecture in the late ’90s at the Institute of Economic Affairs that was saying how we should move to an American healthcare model. It seemed weird then – it seems positively crazy now.
Via MeFi
The NHS is inviting people to vote on whether the interactive bodymaps on the NHS website should have accurately represented genitals or not. Admirably democratic of them, I think.
Why movies should get over Trajan, at Goodie Bag.
My first impressions of the new customizable BBC Homepage is: I like that they’ve got the clock I remember from schools programming up in the top right.
Interesting debate going on at Roy Greenslade’s blog, where an article by Greenslade on Andrew Gilligan’s media feud with Ken Livingstone has prompted Gilligan himself to turn up in the comments section and defend himself.
I have to say, whatever the facts of the dispute (which are arcane), it doesn’t enhance Gilligan’s credibility to arrive in the comments section and start banging away alongside all the other proles commenters. Maybe it’s done from an admirably democratic, all in it together kind of motive. Reading it, however, it feels slightly obsessive and green-inkish.
According to Gideon Rachman in the FT, their review of the Led Zeppelin reunion concert made the ‘most read’ list on the site. Oh, those merchant bankers…