From yesterday's Guardian

First the good. I was pleased to read that the Financial Conduct Authority has banned the practise whereby insurance companies crank up the premiums of regular customers for their house, household and motor insurance. A practise which Halifax Building Society was big into, possibly even in the days when it was a friendly society rather than a for-profit PLC. Which I used to find infuriating.

The Guardian explains that this can be viewed as a way for old people to subsidise young people, which is fair enough given all the circumstances. But it can also be viewed as a way for poor people to subsidise not so poor people. So we should ban this irritating practise and find some other way to subsidise both young people and poor people.

The bad is that the Guardian have seen fit to publish a photograph of someone smoking a cigarette, or at least looking as if he is about to smoke a cigarette. Who is paying them for this covert advertising of this evil habit? Did the smoker, a Maltese businessman called Yorgen Fenech, presently in the news for something bad, give his informed consent? Did he get paid? Is it a roll-up?

And for amusement, I find that Newcastle University has a professor of something called inclusive educational psychology and philosophy. The present professor seems to be something of an expert on helping children who find reading difficult - of whom I believe that there are a large number, maybe 10% of all children, so not really a matter for amusement at all.

Reference 1: https://www.dw.com/en/about-dw/profile/s-30688. The German source of the Guardian's picture, included above. Either that, or there is some third party who supplied both of them.

Reference 2: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yorgen_Fenech. Clearly a colourful character.