Spring has sprung...

It is Easter Monday. A Bank Holiday throughout the land. And it is the middle of Passover too. Such holidays are traditionally meant to signal the beginning of Spring, with all that entails.

Spring is a time in which the newborn of animal kingdom make their first appearance. It is a time when nature's plant kingdom signals its rebirth with vivid colours of new flowering plants, more green leaves on the trees and lush green turf reappearing. It is a time in which humanity responds with a more optimistic demeanour; a return to a happier way of looking at life after the dark short days of Winter.

Being England, this Spring Bank Holiday weekend is marked in the all-too-usual way: rain on Saturday, and grey miserable skies overhead since. But the spirit of the British remains undimmed in spite of the less than favourable weather, both in the natural atmosphere as well as the economic atmosphere. The British have resumed their passionate affair with renewing their homes and gardens, with spending continuing (apparently) apace on DIY projects, new plants and other gardening projects. I believe that no nation comes close to the British when it comes to the magnificence and variety of personal and family gardens. Other nations have outstanding public gardens and places, but the temperate climate of Britain and the temperate nature of the British makes for a formidable array of "outdoor rooms" in the United Kingdom.

It is partly for this reason that over a month ago I felt that Britain was not as doomed to the oppressions of recession as much of the media would have us believe. While the phrase "Dunkirk spirit" is oftentimes overused, it is an admirable description with the way in which the British deal with times of adversity: they remain optimistic and make their best efforts to combat the negative forces, both individually and collectively. There is a traditional British sentiment which allows the collective forces of the people to be much more important than the powers of government. (As an aside, I hope and pray that these collective forces will be brought to bear in bringing to an end the madness of the proposed ID scheme, which can only be seen against the background a continued fight for personal freedom during a thousand years of British history as the travesty it truly is!).

The British four-day weekend of Easter provides not only a time to take stock of our housing and gardens, but a brief respite from the rigours of the hectic unrelenting work-week which dominates out lives in modern Britain. It is a time for families to renew their ties, and for communities to do so too. Although religion is less important to many people now than in previous decades, Easter provides a time for even the less religious to attend church and reconnect with their co-religionists. For the Jewish people, Passover is a time of remembrance of the Exodus from slavery in ancient Egypt. The Passover seder meal (which Christians recall as Jesus' "last supper") brings families and friends together to continue the familiar rituals and symbolism of three thousand plus years. This oasis in the desert of work gives us all a chance to sip from the waters of freedom and put our work burdens down, if only for a few days. Nonetheless, we will return to work tomorrow (Tuesday) in most cases refreshed and with renewed vigour, and in some cases glad to be back at the old routine.

For football fans the Easter weekend signals the turn into the final straits of the season. The end of the season is now clearly in sight, and with each match the final League tables move into ever clearer focus. The remaining Cup competitions become increasingly interesting as some teams are knocked out while others continue to fight for their place in the history books. For supporters of teams which are unlikely to win any trophies but are safe from the despairs of possible relegation to a lower division, Spring signals a time for longer-term thinking: to consider the strengths and weaknesses of the current squad, and to engage in endless speculation about the Summer transfers which keep football alive during its otherwise dormant period. It is hard to recall a season in which the competition to win the Premiership as been so keen; equally the competition to avoid relegation out of the Premiership remains equally uncertain, with so many teams still within a few points of each other.

At the foot of the Premiership it is entirely possible that all three teams from England's north-east—Newcastle, Sunderland and Middlesbrough—could be relegated this season. Long regarded as a hotbed of football passion, this would be a disaster for the north-east in both football terms and the associated economic costs that would likely result. For football fans in the south of England the loss of all three teams would mean less travel expense in both money and time! It is interesting to speculate why there has been this sudden cluster of geographic football disaster in the north-east. Surely if it were truly the hotbed of passion that it is so often proclaimed the supporters would be able to contribute more fully, both monetarily and in their vocal support for their teams, to prevent such problems from occurring. Perhaps football no longer commands the passions of England's north-east as it once did. More likely in my view is the importance of the choice of managers: too often English teams select a manager who was once a great player. But this is to ignore the lessons of history: almost none of the players who won the World Cup for England in 1966 went on to have anything more than mediocre (and often disastrous) managerial careers. This has been seen most recently with the appointment at Newcastle of Alan Shearer as manager. While a favourite son of the north-east as a player, he has no credentials nor background as a manager. It is "last roll of the dice" by the Newcastle United board to prevent relegation. If it does succeed it will be more likely due to the charisma of Shearer being able to turn round the psychology of a team in almost free fall downward momentum, rather than via tactics and team selection. With Shearer's appointment coinciding with the first appearance of the green shoots of Spring in nature, it may well prove to be effective by default rather than by design!

Spurs: living la vida loca

Following an incredible win at Villa Park on Sunday, my favourite football team, Tottenham Hotspur have now reached the heady position of 11th in the Premiership. This is a fantastic achievement on the part of manager Harry Redknapp. When Spurs sacked his predecessor, Juande Ramos, and appointed Harry, Spurs lay at the foot of the league table with only 2 points from 8 games: 2 points from a possible 24. As well as that remarkable transformation in Premiership fortunes, Spurs also reached the Carling Cup Final for a second consecutive year, albeit losing to Manchester United on penalties. One has to wonder: what is the secret of this success? After all, the squad is essentially the same as that available to Ramos...

I would argue that there are a few "secrets" behind the Spurs' transformation. In my mind, there is no doubt that Redknapp is an excellent man-manager, capable of bringing the best out of those players at his disposal. This has been more than amply illustrated by the return to international form of mercurial winger Aaron Lennon and the greater ability to play of club skipper Ledley King. Against this, one has to wonder if Harry can put his magic to work on the likes of David Bentley. Before transferring to Spurs last Summer, Bentley had been a star player for Blackburn, attracting the best kind of attention from football's pundits and journalists alike. Yet he has not yet been able to recapture that kind of form in a Spurs' shirt, although he will always be remembered for THAT GOAL scored in an amazing 4-4 draw at the Emirates. It is my personal hope that the close season will see Bentley acquire his previous form and become a Spurs legend next season.

In addition to personal relationships, Harry Redknapp also appears to be a decent top-flight tactician. His tactics have mostly been designed to bring out the best performances from Spurs and also to deny the opposition. And as the season has progressed and he has learned his players' various strengths and weaknesses he has increasingly got the tactics correct. Of course, no manager can ever get it right all the time, but his ability to change things quickly when they do not appear to be working shows a manager who has the flexibility to change things when needed, and the maturity to not worry about losing face. This was illustrated at Villa Park: the choice of Didier Zokora at right-back was presumably for the added pace to defend against the pacey Ashley Young. Yet Young gave Zokora a torrid time. It was not too long before Zokora was replaced by Vedran Corluka. Although a significantly slower player, Corluka is an excellent reader of football matches, and soon had Young "in his pocket".

And so, at the time of writing, the optimists are looking to Spurs to reach as high as 7th in the Premiership, although the league is so tight that relegation is still a mathematical possibility. The form of Spurs under Redknapp suggests that the latter is unlikely, but there is still some way to go. The performance of the central midfielders needs significant improvement; I have yet to be convinced that (eg) Palacios offers anything different in that position to Zokora, although he still may require much more time to settle in at a new club. And while the improved form has meant fewer goalkeeping errors, it is still an area that requires consideration. The 4-4-2 formation does not make best use of the little Croation genius, Luka Modric. And the left-side of midfield seems to remain enigmatically an unsolved riddle.

No doubt, come May and the close season these will be matters to which Redknapp and his management team turn their attentions. Summer will be an intriguing time for the transfer market, especially with many teams throughout the world suffering from the effects of the credit crunch and ensuing recession. It is a show that I would not miss, any more than I would miss an episode of "The Apprentice" with Sir Alan Sugar, which commences next week on Wednesday (March 25th).

Tottenham Hotspur 2008-2009

For the avid Spurs' fan like me, this season has been of largely ignominious and forgettable proportions. Aside from a trip to Wembley in early March for the Carling Cup Final there has not been a great deal in the Spurs' cup of cheer. And while the occasion at Wembley is always something to look forward to, and the game itself was not too bad, the loss to Manchester United on penalties was disappointing, even if I try to regard their victory as pyrrhic. After all, the record books will show that Spurs lost the final, and in future decades no-one will wonder about the details. For Manchester United it is simply another notch on their almost-inevitable trophy gathering journey through the 21st century.

Sports have a dimension which parallels other aspects of life, in that momentum always plays a big part in determining how destiny will play out. The adage that "success breeds success" is one simple linguistic recognition of that fact. In football, as in other sports, momentum can be a cruel or pleasing mistress. This applies to both momentum within a game as well as over the course of a season. With my beloved Spurs, the loss of the first eight games this season was a downward momentum too difficult to turn around easily, and one only matched by the downward march of stockmarkets and macroeconomies. Such an extended downturn has only one obvious solution to football's decision-makers and fans alike: sack the manager! The dismissal of Juande Ramos paralleled that of his predecessor, Martin Jol. The only key difference being that Jol had twice brought Spurs to fifth position in the Premiership, close enough for anyone connected with the Club to smell the heady feast offered at the Premiership's top table: a place in the UEFA Champions' League. Thus, when Martin Jol's team failed to continue its momentum in 2007-2008 from a season earlier, the dashed expectations meant only one thing: sack the manager!

It is hard to find a Spurs' fan who believes that Spurs should have persisted with Juande Ramos; not so with Martin Jol. The current manger, Harry Redknapp, has done a magnificent job in turning round Spurs' fortunes, stopping the downward momentum and managing to instill enough confidence in the players to begin upward momentum. But Redknapp is not every fans' cup of tea; there remains question-marks over his ability to take Spurs to the next level, assuming that he can actually help avoid relegation. But the Premiership table is so tight, that even this cannot be taken for granted, but neither can the possibility of finishing as high as seventh (which would constitute a minor miracle of Biblical proportions!).

The return of Spurs' favourites Robbie Keane and Jermaine Defoe has served to uplift the spirits of Spurs' fans, but is not in and of itself the root cause of the momentum turnround. But there remains much work to be done in the close season if Spurs are to fulfill their undoubted potential next season. Putting to one side the possibility of transfer market activity, and assuming the same squad in place in late August, I would like to see the following occur:

• A more mobile midfield, with players making better movement off-the-ball.
• A strategy than allows for a team which includes Keane and Defoe (never before achieved successfully) as well as Modric and Lennon, but the Modric NOT played on the left.
• Successful medical and physical therapy to permit Ledley King to play almost every game during a long, hard season.
• Two proper central midfielders, capable of playing box-to-box, rather then the more modern view of a holding midfielder in front of the defence and a more attacking central midfielder. Surely any two from the trio of Zokora, Jenas and Palacios is capable of this? And with Tom Huddlestone as well (may his mobility and confidence improve) why not?
• David Bentley playing to his full potential. To-date he is nowhere near replicating the form which brought him to the public eye at Blackburn, but he has not become a bad player overnight. He needs to work on his pace for sure, but somehow he seems to be lacking on confidence.
• Better performances and goal-scoring from Roman Pavlyuchenko. While has played a Russian season and then an English season with no break, his commitment has been unquestionable despite his obvious tiredness. With a Summer break I would like to see him scoring goals more regularly in the Premiership. He has the ability.
• Better defending as a unit: this does not include only the back four, but also the rest of the team. As Bill Nicholson was fond of saying, a team defends from the front.

Despite a modern failure to win enough trophies and qualify for the Champions League, Spurs remain one of the biggest clubs in the Premiership. This is on the basis of the quality of the supporters at both home and away matches. Spurs are one of only two teams who have managed to maintain the same crowd levels when relegated, unlike Manchester City of Newcastle, two so-called big clubs from alleged football hot-spots. And if Spurs were relegated again there is no doubt in my mind that the supporters would not desert in their droves, but continue to support in their tens of thousands. Indeed, the vocal quality of support ensures that Spurs always have their "twelfth man".

Providing Spurs can maintain employment of their quality players I am confident that 2009-2010 will prove to be a breakthrough season for Spurs. It mainly depends on having the momentum of a good start in the first ten games, and then continuing with some high degree of consistency. Just the thought of next season is already exciting me; I best go and prepare to renew my season ticket!

Quantitative Easing

So the Bank of England has decided to opt for expanding the money supply in an attempt to give the economy the quick-start necessary to prevent a deeper and longer recession. After successful attempts at reflating the economy with interest rate cuts, the previously unthinkable has become not only thinkable but doable. So what exactly is quantitative easing, and will it make any difference?

Before the current recession, the global information economy as we now know it did not quite exist. The previous recession of note was in 1991, when the Internet existed but not within the realm of the general public. One of the consequences of the explosion of global information has been something of a "dumbing down" in the provision of news and other items. This may also be partly an "Americanisation" of news; the CNN factor if you will. Consequently, journalists no longer write articles without concern for headlines, it is the headlines which come first. No phrase can be written without first exploring if there is a "sexier" way of saying it. What is now referred to as quantitative easing has always been referred to in Economics textbooks as expansionary monetary policy: expanding the money supply directly. Most Intermediate Macroeconomics textbooks will examine the impact of such policies using tools such as the IS-LM diagram—first posited in 1937 by the late Nobel Laureate John Hicks—or the Aggregate Demand/Aggregate Supply Model.

Using the IS-LM model, the evidence suggests that in a recession the LM curve is horizontal or near-horizontal. And there is no doubt that we are currently in a recession, which has been both swift and steep. When the LM curve is horizontal monetary policy has no effect whatsoever; it is entirely ineffective. The late John Maynard Keynes likened the use of monetary policy in a recession (or depression) as "pushing on a piece of string"; i.e it would be next to useless. And there have been plenty of occasions when this has been tried in the past and failed.

Given that the policy-makers at the Bank of England are highly intelligent people, with a more profound knowledge of Economic theory and history than myself, one has to question the motive for them engaging in a policy which they know to be ineffective. I can only think of one: they feel the need to be seen to be acting in the face of a recession which does not yet appear to most to be dissipating. However, while I would expect such motivations from elected politicians, I would not have expected the same from appointed technocrats, who must be completely aware of the long-run damage that excessive monetary expansion—excuse me, quantitative easing—can do to inflation rates.

If quantitative easing is not the solution to reducing the impact of a recession, then what is? In a previous posting I argued for expansionary fiscal policy in the form of tax cuts. I still maintain that this would be the best way forward, although this may no longer be an available option given the huge bailouts of so many companies already underway. However, the only true remedy for a recession is to try and turn round public and business confidence, which takes time. With the slight improvement in the weather as winter gives way to spring, we may begin to see the first signs of a change from total pessimism to a more realistic outlook. Barring any additional catastrophes or wars, then I fully expect the recession to begin to end during the late months of Summer 2009. Let's hope that fate does not prove me wrong!

TransAtlantic musings

The occasion of a family wedding took me to the United States just before Valentine's Day. I had lived in the USA for a decade or so in the 1980s, and had been in San Francisco for a few days last Spring. But having now lived in one place--London--for so long brought both places into a start contrast with one another. And the fact that both countries are now in the throes of economic recession made this contrast all the more intriguing.

During my week in the USA I spent several days in the Pittsburgh PA area followed by a few more in my old home town of Asheville NC. The weather in the former was a fresh, vibrant cold and lots of snowfall while the mountain resort of Asheville was sunny and mild. The sense of recession in the USA seemed to me much more tangible than in England. It was a hot topic of conversation, with everyone wanting to know how people in England were reacting to and dealing with an apparently severe economic downturn. From a purely central and north London perspective the recession has not yet had much of an impact. Apart from when I am at work, lecturing on Macroeconomics, the topic is rarely one for conversation. Most people seem to be continuing with their lives as beforehand, with no immediate panic about the future. The Tube trains and buses remain as overcrowded as ever; the shops continue to sell their wares to the same numbers of people, although this recession seems unusual in that many retailers have actually reduced prices (unlike past recessions, where such price flexibility was not so prevalent).

In the USA I felt that many prices continued to be significantly cheaper than for similar products in the UK. This was most noticeable with cars and petrol. In the USA the latter is selling for just below $2 a gallon, while in the UK it is around £1 per litre, almost 4 times as much. A saloon car which might cost £10,000 or more in the UK is currently selling for some $7,000 in the USA. Food prices in supermarkets seem much the same in both countries, but it still remains significantly cheaper to eat out in restaurants in the USA than in the UK. These differences are much the same as I first noticed when I lived in the USA, more than 20 years ago. But the recession seems to be much more marked in the USA, and it may well be that the price differences are due to this. Certainly, the greater flexibility and much less dependable welfare situation in the USA means that it is a more volatile economy, more prone to the swings of the business cycle. While people in the USA are more fearful of the recession—understandably so, as so many people rely on their employers for provision of health care insurance—the USA is also likely to be the first country to emerge from the recession, and probably at a faster pace of growth than any other country. This reveals that the USA's strength—its economic flexibility—is also a source of weakness, enhanced by the much more market-dependent health care there.

So what of this recession? It has probably come upon us much more swiftly than almost anyone expected or predicted, but neither is it as bad as some commentators have argued. At least not yet. We are a long, long way from a second Great Depression like the 1930s, and the recessions of the early 1970s and 1980s seem much worse for any ordinary people who lived through them. And although it would be churlish to begin to talk of "green shoots of recovery", there is every possibility that we have seen the worst. Unless there is a major catastrophe to derail the beginnings of recovery, it would seem that the end of the recession will begin in September (at the earliest) or by early 2010 at the latest. This recession, like so many others in the past, followed on the heels of a banking crisis. Banking, like the entire financial system, can only operate on the basis of confidence, which has become seriously eroded in the past year. Confidence, like any form of trust, takes years to build but can be destroyed in a matter of minutes. Lack of confidence is reducing slowly; full confidence will take years to restore. But as long as confidence is not being further eroded there is every possibility that uncertainty in the general economy will reduce and we will see economic growth restored in the near rather than the distant future. Some of this will be engendered by the various "stimulus packages" (i.e. expansionary fiscal policy) being put in place by governments around the world. That so many of these involve the bailing out of lame ducks concerns me as a precursor to further moral hazard; I would have preferred to see the stimulus in the form of reduced taxes for individuals, rather than a recurrence of policies which failed to be effective in the 1970s. But that is a discussion for another time. For now I must sign off and relive the memories of a recent wonderful holiday in the USA, and dream of going back there again as soon as my bank balance permits.

Any interest in another rate cut?

So the Bank of England has decided to reduce the bank rate to !%, its lowest ever rate. The main motivation behind this is presumably to get people to increase their personal and corporate spending based on a lower cost of borrowing. And with a recession already under way there may be some who would argue that the Bank of England has to be seen to be doing something. Well, perhaps, but there are strong arguments to suggest that this rate cut will not achieve what the previous four have failed to do.

Almost all analysts are agreed that the root cause of the current almost-global recession is the "credit crunch", a liquidity crisis. What the Bank of England's decision seems to neglect is on which side of the market for loanable funds the problem actually lies. The credit crunch is a phenomenon whereby lenders are reluctant to lend due to increased risk aversion, a lack of confidence in the ability of the borrower to repay, which may be more apparent than real. On the demand side there is no lack of desire to borrow: indeed "retail therapy" has become almost a national sport. The lowering of the Bank's base rate will do little to stimulate consumer spending, in part because banks and other lenders remain overly cautious, and also because so many retail lenders continue to raise their interest rates. While the Bank of England makes history reducing tis own rate of interest, one of the key providers of credit cards, Capital One, has raised their rates of interest. I guess we all know what's in their wallet! Capital One has argued that it has become more difficult for them to acquire the funds which they effectively lend out to their credit card holders. It is in remedying this aspect of the credit crunch which the Bank of England should concentrate its efforts, rather than using the blunt instrument of interest rate reductions ad absurdum.

Basic macroeconomic theory tell us that in a recession, when the LM curve is virtually horizontal, monetary policy will be largely ineffective. Under such a scenario expansionary fiscal policy is much more effective. Unfortunately, instead of perhaps increasing government spending on long-term infrastructure projects this government has chosen to bail out the very people who have put us where we are: the heads of the banking system. While there is little doubt that a bail out of the banks was warranted--and certainly preferable to allowing wholesale failures--surely the price should have been the replacement of those who had done the damage? The bailout will do little in the short term to get aggregate demand rising. Given that it may be difficult for the UK government to spend more at this point, then we should look to permanent tax cuts to stimulate demand. A marginal cut in VAT will make no difference. What is needed is a significant cut in income taxes, preferably in reduced tax rates (not the future increases which Mr Darling has opted for). Cuts in corporate tax would help some struggling businesses, but without demand for their products it would do little to run round the economy and move it out of recession. The only remaining solution is to cut personal income taxes by a significant percentage. People are much more likely to spend if they feel they have more income than if they see some prices coming down marginally. If they chose to save any additional income it would have the added bonus of increasing the supply of savings available for borrowing, thereby reducing the rate of interest at a broader level than can be achieved by the Bank of England.

We have been here before, on several occasions in the past. We seem to condemned to repeat the same fallible mantra, which is why I have no interest in another rate cut by the Bank of England. Time for an election, perhaps?

The next Doctor?

Like many people I was surprised when the BBC announced the actor who would succeed David Tennant as Doctor Who. Not only had I never heard of Matt Smith, but when he appeared on Doctor Who Confidential in his first interview, he looked decidedly peculiar. Having watched the programme since it was first broadcast, I thought his looks best suited him to portray an alien rather than a dignified if erratic Time Lord from Gallifrey. This is a view I am now happy to rescind.

Last night I managed to watch the first episode of BBC's new cop show Moses Jones having Sky Plussed (is this a verb?) it on Monday. This slow-moving but atmospheric show set among London's Ugandan community has Smith as side-kick to the eponymous hero. With a convincing London accent, Smith showed himself to be an adept and accomplished actor. It was the realism of his acting without dialogue that convinced me that he would bring something of value to the legendary role of the Doctor. Of course, there are some four special episodes with David Tennant yet to be broadcast during 2009, to which I look forward with great pleasure.

Just one final comment for the BBC producers: why not bring back Paul McGann for a few special episodes of the eighth Doctor? He did a terrific job in the one-off movie, and it was always a shame that he did not do more shows. Time to dematerialise...

Keane to return

It was a great deal of pleasure and some schadenfreude that I welcome the return of Robbie Keane to Spurs. I was saddened when he decided to leave for Liverpool in the Summer, and felt the reasons to be somewhat shallow although not approaching the depths plumbed by Sol Campbell some years earlier. Keane had been reputed to have grown up in his native Eire supporting Celtic, so it came as something of a surprise to learn that learn that Liverpool had become his boyhood team.

During his earlier tenure Robbie Keane had been something of a talisman for Spurs: when Robbie played well so did the team. Even when he hit a poor run of form his energy, commitment and passion for the game always remained evident. There was never any doubt that a poor display would be a short-term temporary phenomenon, something which cannot be said of a great number of footballers in the top flight. I am eager to see if new manager Harry Redknapp will be able to achieve what others have failed to do in the past, and play a front line of Keane and Defoe, once the latter returns from injury.

There is an old adage that "you can't go home again". This has been the case for a large number of professional footballers returning to clubs they had previously played for after some time elsewhere. In this respect Spurs have a decent track record. Players as diverse as Teddy Sheringham, Jurgen Klinsmann, and Neil Ruddock have played for Spurs, then moved elsewhere, and then returned to Spurs to play successfully for a second time. With the return of Pascal Chimbonda, Jermaine Defoe and Robbie Keane to the Spurs' colours this trend seems likely to continue.

And so we welcome back Robbie Keane to the ranks at White Hart Lane. May he continue to average at least one goal every other game, and help us climb up the Premiership table to where we ought to be: in the top four. A win at Wembley on March 1st would not go amiss either. Come on baby, let the good times roll...

With increasing uncertainty about the state of the commodity markets, especially oil, it is perhaps quite surprising that the stock markets have been able to maintain the gains they have made since January of this year.

Does this mean that there is no oil crisis in the offing, or that it is simply not of the same scale as that of 1974 or 1981? After all, did the Western economies not learn from those crisis situations, with many now possessing a large buffer stock of oil? Certainly, the lessons of the past loom large in helping oil-consuming economies deal with the pressures of an uncertain world. But the situations in Nigeria, Iran and, to a lesser extent, Russia make for an uncomfortable situation here in the West. In my next blog I shall examine how we might best deal with the situation, after a preliminary investigation into the possible impact of a continuation—and even a worsening—of current events. Stay tuned!

First post

The world is a strange and exciting place. Just when you think you have a handle on the way it works, something happens to upset your personal psychological apple-cart. In this blog I am planning on developing an approach to minimising the problems caused when the apple-cart is overturned, via a selection of self-penned articles and links to other items of interest.

My own key areas of interest are:
(i) the world of football, especially the English F.A. Premiership, and more narrowly, that of Tottenham Hotspur F.C.,
and
(ii) the world of business and especially finance, whose observation and explanation has been a key source of my income for many years,
and
(iii) Macintosh computers. Having owned and operated one for some two decades--I have graduated from an SE to an SE/30 to the Blue-and-White PowerMac, and now possess the awesome iMac G5--I continue to be fascinated, amazed and inspired by these wonderfully creative tools, and
(iv) Doctor Who, which I have watched since it began in 1963, and continue to enjoy in its new incarnation.

I do have interests in other areas, but perhaps not as obsessively as those mentioned above.