Six of the Best 208

Writing for the New Economics Foundation, David Boyle fears the lamps are going out all over Europe: "What we must work towards is the urgent multiplication of new forms of exchange across the continent, as soon as possible, to meet people’s economic needs. Not everyone can afford gold; fewer people will be able to afford the euro. So our mission has to be to provide them with exchange mechanisms they can use, and which are on the side of life against technocracy."

Strategem XXXVIII also takes a forthright line on recent developments in the European Community.

The death of Socrates reminded Living on Words Alone of a certain Monty Python sketch.

Popular Mechanics discovers what happened to Air France 447. It's scary stuff, but I suppose the encouraging moral is that you have to try very hard before you can crash a modern passenger jet.

The Cat's Meat Shop visits the new Dickens and London exhibition at the Museum of London.

Like me, Self-Styled Siren has been to see Martin Scorsese's Hugo: "Scorsese is still Scorsese, and he hasn’t become an old softy. Still, Hugo glows with the deep love that comes from cherishing one thing or one person over the lengthening years. More than that, it’s about age and youth reaching out to each other. The film flatly rejects the notion that movies cease to speak to us after the passage of too much time, even after more than 100 years."