TrundleAlongJ

Cheapest gluten free loaf you can get is £2.50 compared to 75p for normal bread. And it's a lot smaller too. My son goes through four of those a week.

NHS suggests coeliac children use food banks as doctors blast ‘cruel’ cuts Clinicians warn of ‘shocking levels of ignorance’ over ‘cruel and risky’ decision to cut gluten-free prescriptions

Hadn't realised lots of trusts were no longer prescribing gluten-free food for coeliac kids.

My son is coeliac and his food is so much more expensive. We don't get on prescription because we can afford it but for a family in poverty that's a massive issue.

www.independent.co.uk/news/health/...

UK brick deliveries are a useful proxy for house building starts in the absence of monthly house building starts data & the latest data from the Department for Business & Trade cover August 2025. (1/n)
#ukhousing #ukconstruction

After a trip across Ukraine on trains that keep running in spite of Russian air raids, nothing says welcome home quite like those three magical words:

Rail Replacement Bus

"We should be more like Singapore"

"But far more 18 years old go to university there"

"Not like that"

Pretty much the essence of Dutch Disease

In Hannover many people I did Abitur who chose Ausbildung options often earn as much or more than those of us who went to uni.

But to get that outcome as a norm in the UK you'd need a fundamental reorganisation of the national political economy I doubt any UK party could cope with

A lot of people in Europe are mistaking symptoms for the causes of the America Crisis

Still staring at this and wondering how anyone thinks it's a workable idea.

America is now one big bet on AI It’s seen as the magic fix for every threat to the US economy

‘The hundreds of billions of dollars companies are investing in AI now account for an astonishing 40 per cent share of US GDP growth this year… Outside of the AI plays, even European stock markets have been outperforming the US this decade’
on.ft.com/4pTQ3US

Excerpt from #AdvanceBritannia which is released in the UK on 6 November, preorders appreciated! uk.bookshop.org/p/books/brit...

Tech and the Wealth of Nations Does every country need to have a Silicon Valley?

Good Krugman piece on the lack of a European Silicon Valley. Tech doesn't do much to raise productivity across the economy - unlike, say, Ford in the early 20th century, which employed a lot of people and drove productivity growth through better transport. paulkrugman.substack.com/p/tech-and-t...

We now have the privilege once more of being serenaded nightly by his hoots from the nest he shares with his mate in the oak tree outside our house. One of the most surreal yet worthwhile commitments I’ve ever made.

If this folklore malarky ever falls through, I think I might have found my calling…

Ads on social media have made fast food a click away. Offline, too, temptation and convenience help peddle junk food. New restrictions on food marketing in Britain aim to change that econ.st/3VQzBXQ

Illustration: Erik Carter

A $2bn AI unicorn tests London’s nerve Synthesia is Britain’s biggest generative-AI firm. Can the country keep it?

Enterprise software that Synthesia specialises in is not the sort of AI that grabs headlines, but it is the kind that makes money. Keeping front-runners like it is crucial for Britain

If you love nature writing, you have Gilbert White to thank A new book recreates a year in the life of the author of “The Natural History of Selborne”

Gilbert White, a “pioneering field naturalist”, cleared a path towards modern ecology and anticipated the systematic study of animal behaviour

And the state is growing less and less effective at the same time. One relatively trivial example is fly-tipping. There are steep fines for it and rewards for those who turn in offenders. But the problem grows worse and worse in many places.

Interesting

Bluesky nerd request. I think ages ago I talked about land value tax on here and was querying whether anyone had done any number crunching on it/how it could work outside of the south east, particularly for heavy infrastructure. I think there was some but now can’t remember. Thoughts welcome 🙏

I’ve taken a new approach to the west coast mainline this year, which has been: don’t go to London. It’s served me well so far. But probably knowledge economy something something

British men are driving less, and a culture is vanishing Farewell to the road warriors

‘The average man travelled 8,245 miles in 2002 and 6,549 miles in 2024—a drop of 21%. Almost the entire fall was caused by a decline in driving.’ Such an interesting piece
economist.com/britain/2025...

Perhaps ironic given how things have turned out. But I stand by this, and I'm giving it my best

#MyBackPages

BigTrouble in Little Cheshire Why Adlington New Town might not be all it seems to be

Good piece by @daveproudlove.bsky.social (who knows a thing or two about housing) on the proposed Adlington New Town. open.substack.com/pub/thefootb...

Have we passed peak social media? @jburnmurdoch.ft.com here www.ft.com/content/a072...

Really good @gabyhinsliff.bsky.social piece.

Worth reading in conjunction with the RF 2030 report on why the hospitality sector may have to shrink to free up resources for other things.

Because that may be economically correct but it is not easy politically.

www.theguardian.com/commentisfre...

James Meek · Computers that want things For all the fluency and synthetic friendliness of public-facing AI chatbots like ChatGPT, it seems important to remember...

‘The AIs of the world couldn’t care less whether AlphaGo won or lost. For all the fluency and synthetic friendliness of public-facing AI chatbots like ChatGPT, it seems important to remember that existing iterations of AI can’t do that – care.’

@jamesmeek.bsky.social: www.lrb.co.uk/the-paper/v4...

The Great British Service Station: County Cricket's Great Equaliser A roadside hymn to the County Grind

“Reality often wears a Greggs apron”. This is terrific and very funny about the reality of professional sport by Surrey’s Cameron Steel.

substack.com/home/post/p-...

As an aside, and entirely unsurprisingly, also find talking to supermarket bosses one of the best ways to get a handle on British consumers.

A supermarket boss once told me it takes three or four months to form a consumer habit and after that they can be v tricky to reverse.

This is really interesting on shopping habits after the big squeeze. E.g. more premium range supermarket meals bought as less dining out.
Other cost-of-living consumption changes I can think of:
-more jumper wearing, less central heating.
-more vaping, less smoking.