Theodore Dalrymple

Global warning | 1 September 2007

He who would read newspapers must expect to spend his days in the darkest despair, for they contain nothing but war, murder and medical advice.

issue 01 September 2007

He who would read newspapers must expect to spend his days in the darkest despair, for they contain nothing but war, murder and medical advice.

Popular wisdom, however, tells us that every cloud has a silver lining: though my experience of life leads me to conclude that, in general, the relationship between clouds and silver linings is exactly the other way around (I think Buddhists would agree). Be that as it may, I found a real reason for optimism the other day while reading the French daily, Liberation, that started out Maoist and ended up in the hands of Edouard de Rothschild.

As everyone knows, the population, thanks to its inability to control itself, and indeed its hostility to the very idea that it ought to control itself, is growing ever fatter. We in Britain, indeed, have become a nation of Nauruans, those unfortunate South-Sea islanders who suddenly gained control of immense wealth, started to eat 7,000 calories per day each while luxuriating in a life of total immobility, and ended up with the highest rate of diabetes in the world.

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