Adrian Buck > Recent Status Updates

"We no longer feel confident that we know the answer to the question of how we should grow and acquire our food." - for other, non imperial reasons

"Hitler drew onspiration from the British and American examples"

During the war, the hierarchy of priorities that had always operated within the Empire became glaringly obvious. British citizens were prioritized, below them were the white settlers in the dominions, and lastly, and definitely least, came Britain's [non-white] colonial subjects."

"While 31,000 Allied infantry died in the North African campaign, around three million Bengalis died from starvation and the effects of malnutrition"

The various post-war 'development' failed even to produce food for Britain. More lamentably, the string of development failures did not sufficiently discredit the belief that Africa would be best served if it were transformed into a version of south-eastern England"

"The East Africans would have been better off if they had continued to grow millet, sorghum, njahi and plantain, using traditional farming methods." - only one side of this argument is presented, the author elsewhere mentions labour intensity, but issues of scalability and learning curves also come to mind."

"The East Africans would have been better off if they had continued to grow millet, sorghum, njahi and plantain, using traditional farming methods." - only one side of this argument is presented, the author elsewhere mentions labour intensity, but issues of scalability and learning curves also come to mind."

"Amid the atmosphere of protectionism during the inter-war years, the government worried about its dependency on unpredictable foreign partners..." - why then did they then abandon the Commonwealth for he EEC in the 1970s?

"...in the1920s...Sunday high tea...consisted of tinned Canadian salmon...and...canned Australian pears with tinned Carnation milk" - something I enjoyed as a child in the 1970s

"By the 1890s, Britain absorbed 60 per cent of the meat that was traded globally" - how responsible was Britain for the development of Chicago's stock yards?

"But meat farming soon [after the repeal of the corn laws] hit a ceiling. There was no new pastureland for farmers to extend their operations onto..." - Brexit implies another revolution in how the British feed themselves.

"Low freight charges on the sailing ships that transported the wheat across the Atlantic meant it cost less toship grain from New York to Liverpool [than from Dublin]" - still the case?

"Low freight charges on the sailing ships that transported the wheat across the Atlantic meant it cost less toship grain from New York to Liverpool [than from Dublin]" - still the case?

"In effect, Britain had exported not just its farming population but almost its entire agricultural sector to the United States and the new settler colonies." - The effect of EU membership was to bring Britain's food production closer to home, it will interesting to see what the outcome of Brexit will be.

"Working class adolescent boys from the industrial cities were on average a staggering 10 inches shorter than those from priveledged backgrounds" - John Cleese, Ronnie Barker, Ronnie Corbett.

"Working class adolescent boys from the industrial cities were on average a staggering 10 inches shorter than those from priveledged backgrounds" - John Cleese, Ronnie Barker, Ronnie Corbett.

"In Sheffield, where coal was relatively expensive, there were twice as many bakers as in Leeds, where coal was cheaper." - I just love the way she makes these connections between diet, energy consumption, economics and health. It makes you wonder about the signiticance of Greggs in today's Britain.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jay_Tre...

"But Britain now had its own cotton mills, and protective tariffs were introduced in 1820 that closed the British market to Indian manufactures." - the Buck family enters the cotton market when exactly?

"After the American Declaration of Independence the Navigation Acts had to be amended...(Canada) and the West Indies were dependent on supplies brought in by American ships now sailing under the flag of the United States...in order to counter the growing influence of the US, concessions were granted to other European powers." - Brexit?

"Defend your privacy, the ads yammered out on the hour, from all media. Is a stranger tuning in on you?" - Dick anticipates VPNs in 1969.

"By mastering the outward symbols of British superiority, they claimed to also possess the inner qualities of an Englishman, and this strengthened their claim to political and social equality".

"'When they have Tea', he explained, 'they will want Sugar, Teacups - they will want a Table"

"The notion took hold in the 1820s and 1830s that Company officials should act as agents of Western civilisation' - post Waterloo, pre-Mutiny, it didn't turn out well."

"I am proud of both my daughters, but I don't believe that my parenting skills, or lack thereof, had anything with the way they turned out." - really? When I became a parent myself, my first reference point was my own parents, what I wanted to repeat, and what I wanted to reject. I expect that will be true for my children too.

"Psycholinguists have been baffled by the variability in acquisition of a send language, especially by the fact that some people never lose their accent, even when they were very young when they immigrated" - again, not the ones I've studied: there is whole raft of studies of individual difference, and style shifting that apply here. Maybe she should read a brief history of seven killings

"They pointed out, first of all, that parents' judgments of their children are of doubtful validity; as I have mentioned elsewhere in this book, such judgments agree poorly with those of people outside the family. " - She has also pointed out that children's behaviour varies inside and outside the home, so why the the opinion of people outside of the home is to be privledged escapes me: it's biased differently.

The gold standard study study [in medicine] is large (at least a thousand patients), randomized, and double-blinded, and the researchers have no financial connection to the suppliers of the treatment or the drug. Such studies, alas, are never found in psychology" - I shouldn't think the results are determined by asking the patients if they feel better either.

"It is the actual conquering and taming which has a perculiar attraction"...This changed over time in the US, they learned to appreciate their wilderness.