All Blog Posts

27 Apr 2009 No Comment by Scott Rylander

More student journalism

Posted in Writing

This week’s London Student carries four of my pieces, three of which can be found here: (see pages 8 and 9). I’m thrilled to have my own gay column. The fourth piece, about chocolate (see photos previously on this blog — a world exclusive, no doubt), appears in the…

Read More

20 Apr 2009 No Comment by Scott Rylander

Brioche for all

Posted in Writing

An intriguing letter in today’s Times. Robin Howard of Croydon points out that when our MPs were not paid they were political giants. Thus, we should stop paying MPs.

Read More

19 Apr 2009 No Comment by Scott Rylander

Tax avoidance

Posted in Writing

This tax haven / tax avoidance stuff is getting silly. The Times carries the latest tax avoidance story — that Google has been channeling its revenues through Ireland so not paying UK tax — as if it were some kind of national scandal.

Read More

16 Apr 2009 No Comment by Scott Rylander

High speed rail, US-style

Posted in Writing

President Obama’s announced a plan to introduce a small “high speed” rail network in the States.

It’s an improvement, certainly, on the previous US position. High speed rail was mooted in Florida a number of times and repeatedly scuppered; it’s met with a more gratifying…

Read More

14 Apr 2009 No Comment by Scott Rylander

Yet more theatre…

Posted in Theatre, Writing

gaydarnation (I seem to be getting gayer by the minute) carries my review of G & I: Going Into Battle with Gertrude Lawrence here.

Read More

13 Apr 2009 No Comment by Scott Rylander

Death and the King’s Horseman

Posted in Theatre, Writing

I watched Heat once on a plane, with those tinny headphones that come to you in a plastic bag with a tube of toothpaste and a cotton bud and are so ineffectual you catch about half what’s going on. As a result, I learnt two lessons. One, bring your own…

Read More

06 Apr 2009 No Comment by Scott Rylander

Bank bailouts, circa 1931

Posted in Writing

In The Last Tycoons, his history of the bank Lazard, writer William D. Cohan refers to a rather familiar-sounding event. In 1931, Lazard’s operations in London and Paris came close to bankruptcy when a rogue trader gambled twice the bank’s entire capital and lost the bet.

Read More