This is my father-in-law, Eamonn Monks. He was born in Dublin in 1933 and came to the UK in the mid 1950s. At first he lived in London, where he trained as a dentist and met his future wife, Brigid. But later Eamonn and Brigid moved to Poulton-le-Fylde, outside Blackpool. This Irish immigrant became a pillar of the local community, caring for the community’s aching teeth before becoming a dentist for the prison service. The Northwest was lucky to have him…

Why children can be better than adults at spotting misinformation: ft.com/content/157d51… For the past few months I've been trying to figure out how to help 9-13 year olds make sense of the world (and particularly the numbers that describe it).
It might seem an umpromising task...

Oo, first glimpses inside The Truth Detective, which is out next week! Ollie Mann has done a wonderful job bringing my ideas to life.
For those asking, the book is aimed at 9-13 year olds, although I keep having to confiscate my copy from the grown-ups... Here's one of our Truth Detectives, Muhammad Yunus, microfinance pioneer and advocate of the "worm's eye view"...

What can Lego teach us about how to save the planet? ft.com/content/cc6131… Large complex projects have a habit of going wrong - sometimes catastrophically wrong. Just ask @dgardner and @BentFlyvbjerg, authors of the well-worth-your-time new book "How Big Things Get Done"

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If if may permitted some mild grumpiness, I present my opinionated guide to bad email etiquette. Whether you’re a cubicle dweller or a corporate communications supremo, here are the seven types of email you should never send...
ft.com/content/5700be… 1) The email reminding me that my 7.34am train tomorrow departs at 7.34am. Or that I will need to bring my passport if I want to get on the plane. Stuff changes (especially these days) so these emails must be read. But they're an insult to the 99% least incompetent customers.

Tell me, people, is there a sexier word in the English language than "storage"?
ft.com/content/557fd6… Ah, okay. You may be right. But that's a problem. In today's column I ask whether we're skimping on storage (I think we are, even after accounting for hindsight) - and if so, why.

A while back, I made a list of my favourite introductions to economics.

It includes
David Friedman, "Hidden Order" (alas couldn't find on Bookshop: assoc-redirect.amazon.com/g/r/https://ww…
) Dixit & Nalebuff "Thinking Strategically" (uk.bookshop.org/a/3472/9780393…)

Three thoughts from a Mastodon newbie

A thread ⬇️ timharford.com/2022/11/three-… I'm not the only one to have hopped from Twitter over to Mastodon (econtwitter.net/@TimHarford) in the past few days, I know. But perhaps these three thoughts will be useful to others.

I’m now on Mastodon

A thread ⬇️ timharford.com/2022/11/im-now… For those switching over to Mastodon - or experimenting with doing so - I'm at @TimHarford@econtwitter.net (econtwitter.net/@TimHarford). Feel free to give me a friendly wave and a follow!

I'm not sure how much I'll be active there, to be honest. Let's see.

Dilip Mahalanabis died a month ago, having played a leading role in saving fifty million lives. Outside India, very few people noticed.
ft.com/content/3b38f6… One who did was @stevenbjohnson, author of the wonderful book Extra Life.
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Many of the inventions which have extended our lives are pretty simple: soap, the S-bend, and oral rehydration therapy, which Dr Mahalanabis popularised.

Announcing my next book, The Truth Detective

A thread ⬇️ timharford.com/2022/11/announ… Do you have what it takes to be a Truth Detective?

Did you know that a toy spaceship can teach you about why prices keep rising?

Or that a pooping cow can show you how to invest your pocket money?

So "What If 2?" by Randall Munroe of @xkcd is out, and it's wonderful (of course). Full of rigorous answers to vital questions, such as... ..."What would happen if I had a cubic metre of steel in my house, cooled to absolute zero?" (The answer surprised me.)

Cautionary Conversations – The Conspiracy Theorist Who Changed His Mind

A thread ⬇️ timharford.com/2022/10/cautio… The Cautionary Tales Halloween special is coming next week; while you wait, the wonderful David McRaney talks to me about his new book How Minds Change (UK AMZ (amzn.to/3DhCSa6) BKSHP (uk.bookshop.org/a/3472/9781786…)) (US AMZ (amzn.to/3F0uJIg) BKSHP…

THREAD
How to tax (a guide for governments)
My column this week is about the joy of taxes - which, as Ben Franklin told us, are as certain as death itself
ft.com/content/034b7f… But the thing about taxes is that you can easily avoid them, by not doing whatever it is that attracts the tax.
As @KurtKohlstedt and @romanmars discuss in "The 99% Invisible City", the narrow canal houses of Amsterdam and the bricked up windows of London are just tax-efficient.

So you want to boost economic growth in the UK, huh? Well, gather round...
ft.com/content/d318ff… This is something wise heads have been thinking about for a while.
Idea 1: Upgrade the skills of the UK population, focusing in particular on improving schools.
(Problem: school spending falling, reforms such as free schools have underwhelmed.)

My column this week is about Liz Truss's growth delusion.
Unlike some, I don't think she's wrong to want to increase growth. I just think she doesn't have the first clue how to do it.
ft.com/content/08a713… It's strangely fascinating that GDP/capita - which has many flaws and was never intended as a measure of social welfare - turns out to be so closely correlated with careful, multi-dimensional attempts to quantify real social flourishing, such as the Social Progress Index.

My latest @ftweekend column argues that when it comes to travel, it's not the delays that are the biggest problem - it's the bewildered uncertainty: ft.com/content/e62aec… I did ask @Eurostar to talk through why it's so difficult to keep people informed. (It must be difficult, right? Because that's what every passenger says about every transport provider when things go wrong.) Alas, they were unable to keep me informed... :o)

How to save more lives and avoid a privacy apocalypse (tl;dr - pay attention to @bengoldacre )
ft.com/content/fa2683… The basic problem here? Any dataset rich enough to be useful is also rich enough to be a massive invasion of privacy. Double double double for medical data.

I recently got a new phone, and suddenly got to see the WRITHING HORROR that is reversion to the default notification settings every app developer wishes I used.

It was quite a trip.

Your phone's notification settings, and the meaning of life: ft.com/content/88ea61… The story is also available on the new FT Edit app. I'm not sure what the default notification settings are for that; forgive me if I don't check: ftedit.page.link/jjnXUgEXxmaVcG…

My column this week is about the curious practice of trying to solve the same problem over and over again in different ways: ft.com/content/c8f8a5… It features Brian Eno's microcomposition for Microsoft - the best start-up sound ever:

My column this week is about the most Andy Warhol Warhol. One of the things that makes it so Andy Warhol is that for quite a while, Warhol didn't know it existed...
ft.com/content/bc61a9… Another story about a forgery? Well, yes and no. This particular Warhol was made in the same way and by the same person and many other Warhol silkscreens: Gerry Malanga, Warhol's long-time assistant. He even wrote to Andy about it, but Warhol didn't reply...