Новости за 31.01.2016

Book extract. In which Bill Bryson grows old, remembers the 1960s, takes British citizenship, and prepares to write a second book about Britain. “One of the things that happens when you get older is that you discover lots of new ways to hurt yourself. Recently, in France, I was hit square on the head by an automatic parking barrier, something I don’t think I could have managed in my younger, more alert years”

China says it plans to switch from physical cash to digital currency. Britain and Canada are thinking similarly. Good. Electronic money is an idea whose time has come, better than cash in almost every way. It promises cheaper and easier transactions, more effective monetary policy. The main downside is the extra power it gives to the issuing government. But used properly, against crime and terrorism, that is an upside too

Affectionate memoir of Terry Wogan, who “channelled his love of literature and Ireland and his innate good nature to become one of the most original and enjoyable talkers in the history of British broadcasting”. He borrowed his “wild but jaunty tone” from the Irish satirist and surrealist Brian O’Nolan, with whom Wogan shared a taste for “eye-popping innuendo”. Radio listeners are “unlikely ever to hear his like again”

Jack Benny reputedly earned the longest laugh in radio history for a joke broadcast in 1948: “Criminal: ‘Your money or your life’. Benny: [Pause.] Criminal: ‘Look, bud. I said your money or your life’. Benny: ‘I’m thinking it over’.” But Jean Carroll surely deserved to win with this line two years later: “I’ll never forget the first time I saw him, standing up on a hill, his hair blowing in the breeze — and he too proud to run and get it”

Uber lost a billion dollars in the first half of last year, buying market share around the world. But whose cash is Uber burning? Investors include Google, Jeff Bezos, Goldman Sachs. “Uber is a perfect example of a company whose global expansion has been facilitated by the inability of governments to tax profits made by hi-tech and financial giants. Uber has so much cash because, well, governments no longer do”