Exams , hormones and a dip in the North Sea.

 

We head into town to hear an economist summarize the key ideas in his new book. He's very lucid and concise and manages to combine a robust optimism for the future with an understanding of the political and environmental challenges we face. One of the students in the audience asks a lengthy question about exogenous growth theory. This is handled deftly but still leaves some of us in the audience trying to understand both the question and the answer. We head off to the towns cocktail bar for a post talk drink. It is half full. A young couple next to us sit in near silence. They are  about to part for the summer -  he to Exeter, she to Kensington. Not, one would think, an enormous distance.  His idea of cheering her up is to ask if she wants another drink. We leave before witnessing the first sob of the season. A teenagers path to true love is made all the more complicated by the confluence of exams and hormones. 

This is the book which I would recommend - or at least recommend to the economists and the irrepressible optimists  among the readers of this blog.

An aerodynamic delivery truck outside Costa Coffee. When did delivery trucks start being aerodynamic ?

The town has three streets. Traffic can travel freely in both directions along two of them. The third, for some reason dreamt up by the traffic managers, is two way as far as the fountain. After that it's one way.  A visitor ( a tourist or a parent come to collect their little angel ) heads the wrong way down the one way street. Cars coming in the other direction stop and tell him what he's doing wrong. He ignores them in a ' once you're committed there's no going back' sort of way. In Italy there would be much beeping of car horns. Here the reaction is more muted although there is a shaking of heads.

The daffodils on the golf course now well past their best. The harebells are taking over. It's May 1st so summer is now officially here. The sudden chill wind and cloud cover that sweeps cross from the far side of the bay tells us that the Scottish weather hasn't been told of the change in season. May 1st is also the morning when the remaining students go for a swim in the North Sea. Later this morning we'll wander down to the harbour to see what the turn out is like.

Dangerous books :https://theconversation.com/many-old-books-contain-toxic-chemicals-heres-how-to-spot-them-228834

Controversial issue of the day :https://www.afterbabel.com/p/the-revolution-has-begun-in-the-uk

Tunnocks passion :https://www.buzzfeed.com/jamieross/fifty-five-percent-of-scots-prefer-tunnocks