Back in action

After a three week break I am getting back into blogging. Once I receive comments from my publisher I also will have to rewrite my book manuscript by the end of the month.

So far the links I have found are as follows. If you think I have missed anything particularly important while I have been away please email me.

* I was particularly said to miss this year’s Battle of Ideas festival in London. However, several sessions, including one on post-recession ideologies, are already available on audio. Others will hopefully soon follow on video. Rob Killick has also written up his speech on economic growth and its discontents.

* Worldwrite’s regular Worldbytes television magazine programme includes an item on austerity and the alleged lesions of the Second World War.

* Al Gore is in the news a lot with a new book coming out entitled Our Choice: A Plan to Solve the Climate Crisis. He is also the subject of the cover story in this week’s Newsweek while a New York Times article examines the possible conflict of interest between Gore as an investor and as an advocate for action on climate change.

* Angela Merkel, the German chancellor, made much of the battle against climate change in her address to the American congress.

* Meanwhile, the implication of this BBC article and the related radio programme is that nostalgia for East German values is a form that growth scepticism is taking in Germany. I am not sure this is correct but it is certainly worth investigating.