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What happened to all our Common Sense ?

Editor's note: Herewith a reissue of an amusing aside I wrote in 2022 after a particularly perplexing series of announcements, which seemed to defy common sense...enjoy ! --------------------------------------------------------- Pondering the recent article about the closedown of the world’s largest online eBook library  by the US authorities in 2022 led me back to the question asked increasingly often nowadays:   “ Where has all our common sense gone ?” I thought this might be a good opportunity to take a light-hearted 'tongue-in cheek' look at the logic (or lack of it) underlying human behaviour. What is it ? First of all, what is ‘common sense’ – and how do we define it ? To start with, here's a bit of personal history to put things in context. I can well remember from my early childhood the frequent exhortations I received from my parents in response to what I thought was perfectly reasonable behaviour: ‘…for goodness sake, lad, just use your common sense f...
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Universal Pensioner Benefits: Pre-Budget Update

  Editor's note: Please see the recent update at the end of this text for analysis of the Winter Fuel reversal announcement in June 2025, and its implications for the future of universal pensioner benefits.....You may also be interested in a more recent update on the recent rumours that Reeves may introduce means testing for the State Pension itself in this November's budget....  ----------------------------- Now that the dust has well and truly settled after Reeves’ so-called ‘Halloween Nightmare’ budget in October 2024, and its consequences have fully fitered through to the economy at large, let’s take a look at what actually happened to pensioner benefits…and what we might expect to happen in future. We all know about the loss of the Winter Fuel Payment for the majority of pensioners last summer – you would have had to have been living on Mars for the last year not to. Although Starmer obviously thinks it's 'done and dusted', he is not yet out of the woods o...
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Garendon Park, Loughborough - Public Access Developments

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Important Update 12.10.25: A notice appeared recently at the prospective NCR6 crossing point for the new Garendon distributor road to the effect that '....Butthole Lane will be closed from 13.10.25 for 10 weeks'. This has now been confirmed in the local press, with a TTRO apparently already in place. NCR6 is an established PROW, and is the only remaining traffic-free route between Shepshed and Loughborough for cyclists and pedestrians. Closing it for this length of time will inconvenience pedestrians and cyclists; there is no viable alternative cycle-friendly route, since the Coach Road is also closed and isn't scheduled to reopen again until April 2026.  I will update this blog as soon as the 'alternative diversionary route' promised by Persimmon has been properly publicised.  Update 14.10.25: An inspection today revealed that NCR6 is still open despite the yellow notice, which is still in position. No additional notices or advice on alternative routes has appea...
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The UK Teen Vaping Epidemic – Should we Still be Worried ?

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  I first published this blog in late 2023 when the realisation that vaping was harmful to teenage lungs was becoming more widespread, and the authorities were finally waking up to the fact that they needed to do something.  All the evidence that has emerged since then has tended to confirm our suspicions - i.e. that long-term vaping does impair lung function, and is likely to be doing so irreversibly. We should thus only be permitting the use of vapes strictly as an aid to stop smoking, and only for as long as is necessary to 'kick the habit'. If we fail to restrict availability, and don't manage to convince our kids as to the dangers, we will be condemning a whole generation to breathing problems in their middle and later years, with a serious burden placed on our perpetually overstretched NHS as a result. And it's not just the UK either, the problem seems to have spread worldwide , with 100 million plus now vape-addicted, no less tha 15 million of them teenagers. In ...
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