The View From Here

THE VIEW FROM HEREBEN Goldacre is a doctor whose book, Bad Science, has brought much happiness to those of us unconvinced by the shenanigans of quackery and hocum within the therapeutic, pharmaceutical and cosmetic industries.

THE VIEW FROM HEREI’VE just heard a clip of a 1967 BBC interview with transport minister Barbara Castle and it may take me some time to recover.

THE VIEW FROM HERETHE Island’s celebrity status, like the national economy, needs every boost it can get. The possibility of Sir Paul McCartney gracing this year’s IW Festival is almost too exciting to bear and, should it come to pass, will send our celeb cred soaring into profit.

YOUNG people are often perceived nowadays as unwilling to take on the necessities of old-style campaigning. Sir Bufton Tufton and Sir Herbert Gussett, those epitomes of Tunbridge Wells disgust and keen writers of outraged letters to the Daily Telegraph, appear to be an endangered species.

THE VIEW FORM HEREIT is open season for gunning MPs, though most of them have escaped the fate of being put in a book compiled by Bendor Grosvenor and Geoffrey Hicks of the 40 worst members of Parliament in history.

THE VIEW FROM HERETHE Island has been a little patchy as far as getting to grips with diversity is concerned. A certain reactionary intransigence still holds sway with some people, the very word “change” causing much harrumphing, with bosoms heaving and moustaches bristling (ever sensitive to gender equality, I naturally include men with bosoms and women with moustaches in these categories).

THE VIEW FROM HEREDAVID Cameron’s latest idiotic idea (why do you keep doing these things, Dave, when we’re trying to like you?) is that only those with first class or 2:1 degrees should be allowed to train as teachers.

THE VIEW FROM HERETHE Royal Institute of Chartered Surveyors report costs awarded in neighbours’ boundary disputes now average £65,000, a figure which is unlikely to decrease in our litigious culture.

THE VIEW FROM HEREI HAVE every sympathy for those who suffered during the freeze-up, particularly the old, the ill, the abandoned and those for whom the weather will bring much economic hardship.

THE VIEW FROM HEREAS I watched BBC broadcast of the Royal Shakespeare Company’s stunning production of Hamlet, I kept thinking it reminded me of something. What could it be?

The View From HereTime for those new year’s resolutions and around the Island, some people are all prepared.

THE VIEW FROM HERETHE Copenhagen Climate Change Conference spread its net far and wide and we should all have learned lessons from it. Not least here on the Island, where we have particular cause to treat the subject of global warming with extreme tact.

The View From HereMary Portas, retail advisor and self-styled “Queen of Shops”, has swept on to the charity shop scene with the first of her celebrity-backed boutiques.

THE VIEW FROM HEREAN insolent article about the Isle of Wight has appeared in the Isle of Man Examiner.

THE VIEW FROM HEREEXTENSIVE national press coverage was given to Stoke-on-Trent when it recently became the first city to sign up to the 10:10 campaign, which pledges to cut carbon emissions by ten per cent during 2010.