The Nudge Unit has been considering, per its brief, the small individual incentives that shape collective behaviour: a 1p increase to the 5p carrier bag charge; on-the-spot fines (“or sit-ups! We could make them do sit-ups!”) for looking poor; the salutary effect on spectators of a well-scripted public hanging. Adam is skeptical about this latter: “what are they going to get from it that they don’t already get from Game of Thrones? …

News today of a government initiative to rebalance NHS funding towards voluntary and charitable sources. “The NHS has always been powered by love”, said a spokesman, “love of ordinary people for their nurses and doctors, love of nurses and doctors for their vital, heroic work; the love we all have for our wonderful NHS”. Present funding formulae were too “cold and mechanical” to represent this “vast ocean of love, crashing like waves upon the shores of our Nation. …

The theory is that The Times hides its content behind a paywall out of shame, and that payment of the subscription fee is a kind of indulgence which grants you Divine permission to wallow for a short time in decrepit venality. What happens behind the paywall stays behind the paywall. The Times knows what it’s selling and to whom. Like PornHub, it knows its clientele far better than they will ever know themselves. …

Too much ketamine rips your bladder up. Ulceration, bleeding, incontinence; something called papillary necrosis which sounds especially delightful. “Once established, the urinary tract damage is tricky to manage. Immediate and absolute cessation of ketamine use is the obligatory starting point”. If there is a drug of the moment, it is surely ket. Dissociative, mildly paralytic, dependency-forming, and over-use leaves you pissing razor blades. The morbid symptoms are all around us: “Prime Minister Boris Johnson”, “Home Secretary Priti Patel”, “Whatever that cunt Rees-Mogg is meant to be doing”. …