You could read "informed" analysis of all the stuff that will turn out not to be in the Budget after all; or you could read this stuff instead 
Happy invoicing!
- Watch It Burn - A story of fraudsters extracting billions from carbon credit scams: ”Maybe he was paranoid, having built a multimillion-dollar empire on fraud and deceit, nurturing connections with international criminal rings, but at first he thought that he was being kidnapped. When he saw the jail, he was relieved… As soon as he’d finished his time in prison, he began gaming the new emissions-trading system.”
- Inside Scientists’ Life-Saving Prediction of the Iceland Eruption - Icelandic geophysicists at work: ”The Reykjanes Peninsula has entered a new volcanic era. Innovative efforts to map and monitor the subterranean magma are saving lives.”
- The Butterfly Redemption - Prison inmates are helping to ensure the survival of the Taylor’s checkerspot butterfly: ”Along with eight other incarcerated women, Heather is entrusted with the care and feeding of nearly 4,000 members of an endangered species… With this trust comes the privilege of working just beyond the razor-wire fence during the day before returning to life among the general prison population each night.”
- How Did a Medieval Spice Cabinet Survive 500 Years Underwater? - Culinary delights found in the wreck of the Danish warship Gribshunden: ”Exotic saffron, black pepper, ginger, cloves, and more offer a look into how Scandinavian royalty lived.”
- H.M.S. Moon Rocket - HT to DoctorStrangelove for this one: ”In the 1930s, Arthur C. Clarke and friends designed their own lunar mission.”
- The Studios of London – De Lane Lea + Kingsway - ”On Monday 18th May 1964, Bryan ‘Chas’ Chandler stood outside The Midland Bank at 129, Kingsway, Holborn, West London… In the basement, beneath the Midland Bank, was De Lane Lea Studios.” Chandler recorded notable hits there with both The Animals and The Jimi Hendrix Experience. It's now beneath the Sainsbury's opposite Holborn Tube station.
- Transport for London — Google Arts & Culture - Speaking of Tube stations, TfL and Google have collaborated to put together this excellent online exhibition of stuff from the former's archives
- World War II’s Bizarre ‘Battle of Los Angeles’ - ”On February 25, 1942, an infamous false alarm saw American military units unleash a torrent of anti-aircraft fire in the skies over Los Angeles.” Perhaps inevitably for LA, most of the deaths resulting from the non-existent Japanese attack involved car crashes
- The first microcomputer: The transfluxor-powered Arma Micro Computer from 1962 - Ken Shirriff has got his hands on another obscure bit of computer history: ”What would you say is the first microcomputer? The Apple I from 1976? The Altair 8800 from 1974? Perhaps the lesser-known Micral N (1973) or Q1 (1972)? How about the Arma Micro Computer from way back in 1962. The Arma Micro Computer was a compact 20-pound transistorized computer, designed for applications in space such as inertial or celestial navigation, steering, radar, or engine control.”
- Creative Playthings Reading Lotto: House (1968) - Mike Lynch presents the complete set of cards from a 1968 early learning game: ”The drawings are all full color, bold, stylized pictures of what would be, over fifty years ago, the everyday objects found in the home. This is part of a series of Reading Lottos… I believe we had a set of these when I was a kid, but it was the Zoo version.” Here's a typical teapot of the period
Happy invoicing!
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