Technology to push middle class out of work?

Eric Schmidt, chairman of Google, has given a stark warning at the World Economic Forum in Davos: that technology is replacing middle class jobs and, further, that it’s not certain that displaced workers will have the right skills to be re-hired. It will be, he says, a “defining” problem for the next two to three decades.

Measuring Success

We live in a world driven by value. By which I mean money.

Yesterday, I found myself explaining money to my 9-year-old son and this is a practice which I advise all adults to engage in – whether they have 9-year-old children or not (I’m sure girls work just as well, by the way, I just don’t happen to have one of those). Young children, in my experience, don’t understand the obsession with money and I think that we can learn a great deal from them.

World Peace, Oil, and the Falklands

It hardly seems like it can be thirty years since the Falklands War. I was still at school at the time, and I guess that foreign policy and the rights and wrongs of nations were not my strong point. All I knew was that it was scarey, yet morbidly exciting. Thirty years later, with more inclination to understand these things, the conflict, the ongoing war of words and the history of the islands has me puzzled and not a little concerned about human nature.

The un-elected head of State

More than 24 million people in the UK watched the royal wedding – maybe as many as 34 million watched at least a bit of it – according to the BBC. Which is pretty impressive, considering the moaning about it which we’ve endured for weeks. What with newspapers and TV being full of pant-wettingly excited build-up, and the same newspapers and TV also being filled with gloom about the cost, the waste, and the sheer effrontery of royalty in the first place, I for one am pretty glad it’s all over.

But not quite, because I want to revive it all one last time. Because today I want to talk about elections.

Why I’ll be voting Yes to AV

I don’t recall any popular vote which has been so full of bitching by both sides. It’s quite sickening to watch. But despite some appalling logic from the Yes men, I’m still going to vote Yes to AV in May.

Why?

Here are my reasons.

The end of Elfen safety?

The Elves have a lot to answer for. Their safety, it seems, has been paramount, surpassing our human needs, for the last decade or two after near insignificance “in the old days”. Now, however, the tide may finally be turning.

So many things seem to be disallowed because of “Elfen safety”. OK, ok, I know – it’s “Health and Safety”. I apologise. I couldn’t resist. It won’t happen again.

The wonders of politics

I’m 37 so, although I have experienced a hung parliament once before in my life, I was less than two years old and not giving it much attention.

This time around, I find it fascinating.