Back to work

Today was my first day back at work after the Christmas break. It was good to see my colleagues and sobering to realise that the world didn't stop when I was away. Darn.

In non-work news, my investments have been doing rather well of late. I'm up 13% on my original investment - which I made in August (I think). So, I'm quite happy at present. Of course, I will lose everything before I decide to sell, no doubt. But it's a nice feeling while it lasts.

I made a deliberate point of staying away from the IT industry over Christmas. Instead, I indulged my interests in economics and politics (as well as visitng family and friends and partying, I should add... I'm not entirely strange).

In particular, I have been reading

• "The Undercover Economist" by Tim Harford. It was every bit as good as I expected it to be. I wish I could give a copy of that book to everybody who tries to tell me how high gas prices are all British Gas's fault or why lowering tube fares is the right thing to do.... or one of a million other annoying things people say when they are in need of a good economics primer (not that I know much more than them, I hasten to add)
• "The Wealth of Nations" by Adam Smith (don't click on his name if you're expecting his blog. He died some time ago...). I'm finding this heavy-going but am making slow but steady progress
• "Why Most Things Fail" by Paul Ormerod. I'm about half way through this and am finding it educational.
• "The Economist Style Guide". This is not, as my parents thought, a tutorial in how to dress like a mathematically-inclined social scientist but, rather, a book that tells you how to write clearly.
• "The Road To Serfdom" by Friedrich A. Hayek. (I haven't actually started this yet, I must admit.... but it's on my list).

As I hinted above, I deliberately avoided almost all IT-industry-related thinking and reading so now have an enormous RSS feed backlog to clear...

[EDIT - almost immediately after posting to correct formatting ]