Tag: nonfiction

#BookReview Butler to the World by Oliver Bullough

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Butler to the WorldAbout the Book

How did Britain become the servant of the world’s most powerful and corrupt men?

In Butler to the World, Oliver Bullough reveals how, despite priding itself on values of fair play and the rule of law, the UK took up its position at the elbow of the worst people on Earth: oligarchs, kleptocrats and gangsters.

From the birth of tax havens in the 1950s, moving from the British Virgin Islands to Gibraltar and Mayfair, this is a damning portrait of global finance and politics in the UK today – and an incendiary reminder that it doesn’t have to be this way.

Format: Paperback (304 pages)          Publisher: Profile Books
Publication date: 19th January 2023 Genre: Nonfiction

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My Review

Subtitled ‘How Britain became the servant of tycoons, tax dodgers, kleptocrats and criminals’, the author’s view of the UK’s approach over the decades can probably be summed up as ‘Take the money and look the other way’. Using the analogy of the way a butler solves problems for his master by fair means or foul regardless of the consequences for others – as P. G. Wodehouse’s Jeeves does for Bertie Wooster – the author presents a series of case studies showing how Britain has facilitated the use of tax havens, complex financial structures and tax loopholes to allow shady individuals to squirrel money away. In other words, how  Britain, including its overseas territories, has become a ‘butler to the world’ and how successive governments have been good on rhetoric but poor on action when it comes to tackling global financial corruption.

He identifies the start of this as the Suez Crisis in the 1950s which was, he argues, a sign of Britain’s waning influence in the world. Added to this was the loss of income following the independence of its former colonies.  As he observes, ‘The banker to the world transformed into a pauper; the global currency limping from one crisis to the next’.  It was necessary to replace the lost revenues and a small circle of people within the City of London’s financial instititions came up with ways to do it that took advantage of a regulatory regime which pretty much relied on ‘chaps doing the right thing’.  Except it turns out they didn’t. Instead they looked for any way they could to keep money from around the world flowing into their coffers and stop anyone else finding out about it, especially the taxman, their defence being ‘If we don’t do it, someone else will’. It’s the same instinct that still drives those on the political right to call for more deregulation not less.

The author is clearly an expert on his subject but I confess that some of the detail in a few of the case studies, especially those involving arcane financial products and obscure company structures, went rather over my head.  The chapters I found most absorbing were ‘Rock Solid’ which describes how Gibraltar became rich by establishing itself as the online gambling centre of the world and ‘Down the Tubes’ in which the author explains how a Ukranian tycoon with possible links to the world’s most notorious mobster managed to manoeuvre his way into the heart of the British establishment, including being sold one of London Underground’s ‘ghost stations’ by the Ministry of Defence.

In the chapter ‘Giving Evidence’, the author describes the UK’s woeful record on tackling money laundering, leaving him to conclude that what measures are in place are designed to give the impression of extreme activity while actually doing nothing.

The new paperback edition has an introduction written after Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, in which the author scathingly describes Britain’s then prime minister Boris Johnson as ‘a butler’s butler: a politician who had suppressed a report into Russian interference in UK politics; who had welcomed billionaires to London; whose government had established a special “VIP lane” for well-connected individuals to use when selling goods to the government during the pandemic; who had merrily befriended oligarchs; and who had, before becoming prime minister, earned a six-figure sum writing a column for a newspaper owned by tycoons who owned their own tax haven’. Ouch.  The author concludes change is unlikely to come from politicians or civil servants, which means it’s up to us. Reading a book like this is perhaps a good start.

Butler to the World is an impeccably researched, no holds barred exposé of the way Britain has become, in the author’s words, a global enabler of skulduggery. It left me feeling simultaneously informed and appalled but unfortunately not entirely surprised.

In three words: Authoritative, polemical, insightful

Oliver BulloughAbout the Author

Oliver Bullough is the author of the financial exposé Moneyland, a Sunday Times bestseller, and two celebrated books about the former Soviet Union: The Last Man in Russia (shortlisted for the Dolman Prize) and Let Our Fame Be Great (shortlisted for the Orwell Prize and winner of the Cornelius Ryan Award). His journalism appears regularly in the Guardian, The New York Times and GQ. (Photo: Twitter profile)

Connect with Oliver
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#BookReview Life Time by Russell Foster

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Life TimeAbout the Book

In the twenty-first century, we increasingly push our daily routines into the night, carrying out work, exercise and our social lives long after dark. But we have forgotten that our bodies are governed by a 24-hour biological clock which guides us towards the best time to sleep, eat and think. New science has proven that living out of sync with this clock is not only disrupting our sleep, but leaving us more vulnerable to infection, cancer, obesity, type 2 diabetes, heart disease and mental illness.

In Life Time, Professor Russell Foster shares his life’s work, taking us on a fascinating and surprising journey through the science of our body clocks. Using his own studies, as well as insights from an international community of sleep scientists and biologists studying circadian rhythms, he illustrates the surprising effects the time of day can have on our health:

– how a walk outside at dawn can ensure a better night’s sleep
– how eating after sundown can affect our weight
– the extraordinary effects the time we take our medication can have on our risk of life-threatening conditions, such as strokes

In the modern world, we have neglected an essential part of our biology. But with knowledge of this astonishing science, we can get back into the rhythm, and live healthier, sharper lives.

Format: Hardback (480 pages)      Publisher: Penguin
Publication date: 19th May 2022  Genre: Nonfiction, Science

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My Review

Although the book’s sub-title, ‘The New Science of the Body Clock, and How It Can Revolutionize Your Sleep and Health, might give the impression this is purely a self-help book in fact it’s a detailed account of the current thinking, based on scientific research by the author and others, about the effects of the body’s circadian rhythms – the so-called ‘body clock’ – on sleep, physical and mental health.

If I had to place the book on a scale between popular science and academic text, I’d say it tends more towards the latter although the ideas it contains are expressed with clarity and precision.  Some chapters go into more depth than others and I’ll confess there were some sections I skipped entirely because of their complexity.  There are detailed diagrams with even more detailed notes providing supplementary or explanatory information. With a few exceptions, I would say it’s not necessary to read all the additional information in order to understand the concepts the author is discussing or the propositions he is examining. For those wary of embarking upon a book of nearly five hundred pages, over a hundred pages are taken up by appendices, references and index.

Life Time is full of fascinating information and you get a real sense of the author’s passion for his subject. I certainly learned a lot about how much of our body’s functions are influenced by circadian rhythms, everything from saliva production to control of appetite, and how disruption of our body clock can have an impact on our sleep, our cognitive ability, our physical and mental health, even the effectiveness of medication. The book focuses a lot on the impact of sleep and circadian rhythm disruption (SCRD), especially in relation to night shift workers. For example, that this is likely to have been a factor in the accidents at the Three Mile Island and Chernobyl nuclear plants or the Exxon Valdez oil spill.

If this is all sounding a little heavy, there are moments of humour. For instance, at the end of each chapter the author includes examples of questions he has been asked at talks and lectures he’s given. My favourite was, ‘If we shouldn’t eat at night, why do they put a light in the fridge?’. Actually, the author demonstrates that there is scientific evidence for what we call the ‘munchies’.  He also provides some useful, and often amusing, analogies. For example, when discussing the relationship between SCRD and stress, that stress is ‘a bit like the first gear of a car engine – it provides rapid acceleration – which can be very useful short term. But if you keep the engine in first gear for a long journey you will destroy the engine’. Or, when discussing the key elements of cognition, that essentially our ‘executive functions are the processes in the brain that allow us to solve problems – like E=MC² – or for most of us, how to turn what we find in the fridge into dinner’. He also demonstrates there is science behind the old adage that you should sleep on a problem.

The book ends with a ‘call to arms’, for more communication about the impact of sleep deprivation on education and employment, especially healthcare, and the actions that can be taken to mitigate this.  My main takeaway from the book is summed up by the author’s comment that ‘what we do when really matters’.

In three words: Detailed, fascinating, authoritative

Russell FosterAbout the Author

Russell Foster is Professor of Circadian Neuroscience, Director of the Sir Jules Thorn Sleep and Circadian Neuroscience Institute (SCNi) and Head of the Nuffield Laboratory of Opthalmology at the University of Oxford. He is a Fellow of the Royal Society and was awarded a CBE for services to science. Russell frequently contributes to newspapers, and often appears on television and radio, including an appearance on Desert Island Discs. He has co-written four popular science books, but this is his first as sole author.