Capital is money that is invested in the expectation of a profit. Investors inevitably move their moneytowards the highest rate of interest and lowest risk of loss. The analogy of fungal growth is offered here.A fungus such as wood rot will extend many hyphae. Where water and nutrients are abundant a newfruiting body appears above ground as a mushroom – or a stock market. Dry spaces are a minor obstacleto fungal growth, and national boundaries are minor obstacle...

This e-book explores the linguistic connections between Cumbria, Iceland and Scandinavia. The English Lake District was peopled by Celts who spoke a language like Welsh, and traces of their speech can still be heard, such as yan-tan-tether counting. Angles and Saxons then moved into Cumbria and Scotland with their own Germanic speech, and the region was incorporated into Northumbria. Later Norsemen came from two directions - westwards from Yorvik, but also from the sea. These colonists spo...

“Bannockburn: Norman v Norman” opens with the famous scene of de Bohun on his destrier charging de Brus on his palfrey, and asks this question: why do they both have French names and use Norman cavalry terms? Section one examines five factors in nationhood: a common enemy; language; religion; economy; and geography. These factors are then examined in the unmet national aspirations of diverse peoples including Georgians, Tamils, Kurds, and ISIL. The Scots language is the main distinguishing...

Originally published in 1995, The Body Under Stress, reissued here with a new preface, seeks to define positive health, the skills needed to acquire it, and how to pass them on to others as part of education and counselling on health issues.Most people now view health as “fitness” – a repertoire of skills or health behaviours, necessary to overcome: excessive workload; bereavement; reliance on alcohol, tobacco or other drugs; over-use of back or neck. While many of these behaviours...

English is one of 450 current languages that derive from a common ancestor. It is possible to reconstruct this Proto Indo European from its descendants, particularly Ancient Greek, Sanskrit, Latin and Hittite. From this highly inflected language 4,000 years ago we arrive at Modern English, which has abandoned all but a dozen inflections in favour of a word order grammar. After the Romans left, migrants from Anglia brought their Germanic language and started to push Welsh speakers westwards...

This e-book is about smaller families - one child, or perhaps a child-free life. While women in most of the world tend to stop at two children, in much of Africa they have more. This 2020 revision attempts to find shared values with them, referred to hereafter as "development partners"My goal here is in broad sympathy with the aims of the UK charity Population Matters, though disagrees sharply on priorities. Good empathy with people in agricultural societies is needed, informed by ...

Piketty's data describe the way that the pressure of investors for return on capital in low growth situations causes decline in real wages. The state can intervene to recoup some capital for the general good. In Britain the private housing market is taking up land from cash-strapped councils either to gain value while left empty or as buy-to-let. An alternative public housing model is outlined. Public debt accumulated mainly through spending on education and through loans to banks. Austeri...

THE TRIAL is a novel written by Franz Kafka from 1914 to 1915 and published in 1925. One of his best-known works, it tells the story of a man arrested and prosecuted by a remote, inaccessible authority, with the nature of his crime revealed neither to him nor to the reader. Heavily influenced by Dostoyevsky's Crime and Punishment and The Brothers Karamazov, Kafka even went so far as to call Dostoevsky a blood relative. Like Kafka's other novels, The Trial was never completed, although it d...

According to Wikipedia: "Utopia is a work of fiction and political philosophy by Thomas More published in 1516... The book, written in Latin, is a frame narrative primarily depicting a fictional island society and its religious, social and political customs... Sir Thomas More (February 7, 1478 July 6, 1535), also known as Saint Thomas More, was an English lawyer, scholar, author, and statesman. He is also recognised as a saint within the Catholic Church. During his life he gained a reputat...

Kafka wrote The Metamorphosis in 1912, the year he felt his creativity finally taking a definite form. It was one of fairly few works Kafka was to publish in his lifetime. In 1913 he turned down an offer to publish the story, possibly because he was saving it for a book he was planning called Sons. A year later he sent the book to a friend who was prevented from publishing it by his conservative editors. Finally, The Metamorphosis appeared in print in 1915, after Kafka asked a publisher to...

Madame Bovary had published in book form in April 1857, the novel focuses on a doctor’s wife, Emma Bovary, who has adulterous affairs and lives beyond her means in order to escape the banalities and emptiness of provincial life. Though the basic plot is rather simple, even archetypal, the novel’s true art lies in its details and hidden patterns. Flaubert was notoriously perfectionist about his writing and claimed to always be searching for le mot juste (the right word)Features:

The story follows Leopold Bloom on a seemingly ordinary day in Dublin, during which Bloom's wife, Molly, commits adultery. This experimental novel is among the most important works of Modernist literature. It was initially deemed obscene in England and the USA for its scandalously frank, life-changing reading experience.