I can still remember, as a toddler some 57 years ago, seeing a steam locomotive shunting coal wagons in sidings not far from where I grew up.  It wasn’t to last.  Later that year, the infamous Beeching cuts were implemented.  A couple of years later, the two-track branch line had …

Ordinarily, a giant container ship as long as the Empire State building is high, blocking the southern stretch of the Suez Canal, would have been the lead story on every news channel.  Around ten percent of the world’s seaborne oil goes through the Canal; some 3 to 4 million barrels …

Cargo cults have been a feature of Pacific Islander beliefs for at least as long as European and Chinese sailing vessels traded goods across the ocean.  As Peter M. Worsley wrote in a 1959 article: “Throughout Melanesia primitive men await a black Messiah who will bring them a largess of …

Until the 1860s, whale oil had been the main fuel for lighting and for use as a lubricant.  Until recently it was believed that excess hunting had resulted in the decimation of whale populations by the mid-nineteenth century.  However, while hunting had taken its toll, it appears that whale populations …

It goes without saying that online retail has had a good pandemic.  And when it comes to online retail, Amazon leads the pack.  At the same time, “bricks and mortar” aka “High Street” retail has taken a pounding, as the retail apocalypse gathers pace.  Understandably, demands for a new “Amazon …

It is, perhaps, easiest to blame all of Britain’s ills on Brexit.  Failing this, the global pandemic – and our response to it – is a good candidate for blame as the economic consequences of global lockdowns and restrictions begin to emerge.  There are though, slower and deeper processes which …

As a young child I remember being gripped by the unfolding drama of the ill-fated Apollo 13 mission.  Coming in the wake of two successful moon landings, the Apollo 13 mission appeared routine.  It was all too easy to forget just how dangerous space flight was – and still is.  …

Unsurprisingly it is the arguments underpinning today’s UK Budget which prove more informative than the Budget speech itself.  Indeed, there were no surprises in the Budget – most of the individual policy changes having been leaked in advance.  And with the exception of the rise in corporation tax from 19 …

In the 1860s, some British economists began to wonder if the economy was about to enter a steady-state.  With so much of its economic activity automated with coal-powered steam technologies, surely Britain could rest on its laurels.  Instead of having to dig ever deeper to extract ever more coal – …

Once again, the moral and intellectual degeneracy of the failing US Empire has resulted in science being subordinated to politics.  This time it is the freak freezing weather and its aftermath in Texas which has provided the pretext for division.  First came the knuckle-dragging wing of climate change denial; asking …